MEN FOR SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 86, 5 January 1940, Page 8

MEN FOR SERVICE

Government To Make Drive

VOLUNTARY SYSTEM

Mr. Savage’s Belief In Its

Success

“I am not prepared to admit that the average New Zealander has lost his sense of proportion, as I feel he must realize that if he does not enlist and go where the war is now, he will eventually have to enlist and fight a lone hand if he stays at home,” declared the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, when expressing in an interview yesterday the firm belief that all the men needed for all arms of the service would be forthcoming under the voluntary system. “Without the assistance of Great Britain export becomes an impossibility, and without export the whole of our economic life will be strangled,” Mr. Savage said. “It is only by sending our produce to Great Britain that we can hope to get machinery and raw materials to build the nation that we have talked so much about.

“I have no more love for war than the average man. Every person who knows me knows my views on this subject, but it is absolutely essential that we get the men, and the Government intends to make an immediate drive for recruits. I have sufficient confidence in the young men of this country to believe that they will enlist knowing the responsibility which they carry.” Mr. Savage emphasized again that there was to be more equality of sacrifice. He was not going to ask men to go abroad and fight for New Zealand with the prospect of returning to participate in the burden of huge war debts.

“The Government is already planning for the after-war period,” he said. “It is a big job, but it has to be faced.”