CALL TO DUTY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 54, 5 March 1942, Page 8

CALL TO DUTY

APPEAL TO MAORIS

HOME DEFENCE FORCES

Speaking first in English and then in Maori, Mr. Paikea, member of the Executive Council representing the Native race, appealed last night to young Maori men to join either the special home defence Maori Battalion, to be recruited from volunteers for over- - seas service, or the Territorial Force. Mr. Paikea said he was sure the formation of a Maori Battalion in New Zealand would foster an extra keenness in the Maori war effort. The job of keeping the battalion at full strength lay with the Maori people, with the elders, with every able-bodied man, and with the mothers. "The battle front has been brought nearer home," said Mr; Paikea. "and ■ because of the imminent danger to our own homes and to ourselves, it has become our duty to exert ourselves and strain every sinew to prepare ourI selves to combat the enemy in the most effective way. The way to do this is for every able-bodied young man to enlist in the battalion or in the Territorial Force. Your country, your homes, and your families, yea, your very lives, call you to duty. "The brave deeds exemplified, by your own sons and brothers, together with their pakeha comrades, invite us all to greater sacrifices and thus greater service. Furthermore, the spirits of your fallen sons cry out across the ocean of Kiwa to keep alight the torch for democracy and freedom. We must not lay down the torch which has been so successfully carried by our boys in Greece, Crete, and Libya. By joining up with the battalion or the Territorial Force, we. the Maori people, will march side by side with our pakeha comrades to defend our homes, and by God's grace we will win in the end in our battle to preserve to us our heritage."