THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT.

White Ribbon, Volume 35, Issue 412, 18 November 1929, Page 8

THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT.

"AN ARMY OF PEACE." A leading article in a rect*nt edition of the London "Sunday Times’’ dmls with the birthday of the Boy Scout Movement and sets forth a hope that lies in every heart —that there may some day be on earth not many armies—armies for war —hut one army, an army of peace. The "Tinies" says: "In the binding of the youth of the world into a common comradeship, inspired by a single conception, the Boy Scout Movement has behind it an idea, and before it an ideal, that might grow to be momentous in history. The Chief Scout has spoken of the movement hr the world's greatest army, an army of peace. That is what it could become. But peace must have firmer foundations than a flood of sentiment. It is too **aay to throw our caps in the air and talk as if youth had already established impregnable bulwarks against war. To behave like this is to deceive youth and do a disservice to peace. The work has as yet hardly begun. Whether it proceeds depends on bigger factors than the gathering of international boyhood under a common spread of canvas for a few day's happy celehrating.lt depends on how the movement is to be handled as it grows, whether the international outlook and a genuine hatred of w r ar are to be bred in the young mind. Properly handled. Scouting can become a big movement for peace, and a deep responsibility rests on those whose privilege it will become in the future to direct it For it is equally true that no movement could so easily be set to the service of a narrow patriotism or misused as a basis of military upbringing. The youthful love of adventure to which Scouting so imaginatively responds turns all too easily into military channels. To keep the Scout Movement clear of this everywhere and in all countries will not be ensy; even to foster this tendency deliberately might in conceivable instances become a temptation." "The splendid vision of an army of peace must be brought into reality. Whether it is brought there depends quite as much o»i other things as on the wise direction of the Scout Movement itself; it depends quite as much on the old and middle-aged as

on the young. The work for peace is slow and long, and we deceive ourselves if we think otheiwise. That is why, on the fifteenth anniversary of tiie outbreak of the greatest war in history, and in a world still suffering from its effects, but moving yearly further away from the remembrance of its worst horrors, surrounded still by arms, we have chosen to stress the responsibilities rather than the very coniderable achievements of the Boy Scoui. Movement. The world must sure that never again will the youth of the nations meet face to face, not at a jamboree, but across the stricken field of No Man's I^and."—From the "Eden Gazette," September 19th. 1929. The Taranaki Seamen’s Rest Committee acknowledges, with thanks, donations to the funds of 10/- from the otaki W.C.T.IV, and from Ohau W.C. T.U. 6s 10|d.