A CALL FOR NATIONAL SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 187, 4 May 1940, Page 10

A CALL FOR NATIONAL SERVICE

Latest developments in the war situation should bring home to the people of this country a clearer understanding of the grave danger with which the British Empire is faced. We have had ample and telling evidence of the ruthless and unscrupulous character of the enemy, his strength, and his destructive and far-reaching programme of aggression. Before the war began Austria and Czechoslovakia had disappeared from the map. Now, after only eight months of war, Poland has been crushed, Denmark occupied, and Norway is now in the throes of a German invasion. What of Holland, Belgium, Sweden, and the Balkans? In the light of all these portentous happenings the amount of apathy and indifference which prevails in this country is deplorable. The greatest difficulty is being experienced in filling the ranks of the Third Echelon of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, yet for months to come—years, perhaps—reinforcements will have to be enlisted, trained, and dispatched overseas to maintain the strength of the division, and provide reliefs for rest periods. None realize more clearly the nature of this problem, and the stern necessities of the case, than the men who fought in the Great War, and it is to be hoped, therefore, that the sentiments expressed by speakers at yesterday’s meeting of the Council of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association in regard to the need for a maximum contribution to the Empire’s war effort will strike home to all concerned. The Council was unanimously of the opinion that nothing short of “a national register and the introduction of compulsory universal national service” would meet the urgent requirements of these perilous times. On your behalf (said the president, the Hon. W. Perry, M.L.0.), I implore the Government to abandon the voluntary system and adopt national military service. After all, Britain took conscription in her stride. We have more to lose than Britain, so let us go further and give a lead to the Empire by adopting universal service. How can the Government and the people of New Zealand, in the light of present events, of the uncertainties and dangers of the future, and the demonstrated difficulty of inducing men eligible for service to come forward in defence of their country, ignore this urgent appeal ? Surely it is clear to everyone that events have reached a stage when questions of party policy and considerations of individual self-interest must be thrown aside in a common effort to put this Dominion’s full weight into the struggle for the Empire’s and its own existence. People who adopt resolutions opposing compulsory national service and demanding that their standard of living must not be interfered with should reflect upon what kind of existence theirs would be under Nazi rule. The time emphatically has come for all concerned to abandon sectional differences and unite to face the common danger with all the resources and energies at the country’s disposal.