Gatherings of ex-service men and women in clubs, associations, or reunions are very much a feature of New Zealand life. The principal ex-service associations are represented on welfare bodies, such as the Patriotic and Canteen Fund Boards and pensions boards, and Governments have often consulted them or heeded their views. Their membership totals well over 100,000, mostly of men over 40 years old, and they speak with varying degrees of authority for more than a quarter of a million ex-service people and their dependants.
The first associations were formed early in this century by men who had served in the Second Boer War. Clubs, which were formed first of all to pick up the threads of wartime friendships, became in due course South African War Veterans' Associations, each autonomous in its own district, usually as an incorporated society. A national body, the South African War Veterans' Association of New Zealand, was not formed, however, until after the First World War. Membership was not restricted to New Zealanders, and the total of 1,479 in 1943 included Australians, Canadians, South Africans, and men from the United Kingdom. As late as 1952 there were 1,200 members, but the years took an increasing toll from then onwards and in 1962 the figure fell below 300. Though the various associations have undertaken welfare work among South African War veterans, their functions have been chiefly social. They were never numerous enough to exert great influence in Government circles and by the time many of their members needed help, more powerful spokesmen for ex-service interests had appeared on the scene.
The South African War volunteers had enlisted for one year only; they served in small contingents widely separated, and the 6,000-odd who returned were quickly reabsorbed into the civil community. The First World War of 1914–18 took more than 100,000 men and women abroad, the men mostly in army formations which attained a lively esprit de corps. They suffered great hardship and loss. Because of their greater numbers and the more intense quality of their war experience, therefore, the returned men of the First World War found it harder to settle down afterwards in civilian life. When they organised themselves, as they began to at the end of 1915, into Returned Soldiers' Associations, they at once engaged in vigorous debate on issues such as land settlement, the handling of patriotic funds, and promotion for those going overseas again. The Government and other public bodies soon recognised the RSAs as representatives of returned soldiers: trade unions, for example, discussed with them the matter of wages for disabled ex-servicemen. By July 1916 there were 18 local associations, as well as a national body, the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, with headquarters in Wellington. On Anzac Day of 1918 the first issue of the RSA official newspaper, Quick March, appeared. Membership grew by 1920 to 57,000, but thereafter it began to fall off.
The NZRSA explored all aspects of what was then called “repatriation” (later “rehabilitation”), that is, the change from army to civilian life with its many problems of adjustment. It helped to gain official recognition of the fact that many illnesses – mainly tuberculosis cases – were attributable to war service. It thrashed out the complicated details of a pensions scheme and finally in 1923 got the Government to set up a War Pensions Appeals Board. The RSA Land Committee and Land Bureau helped returned men to find farm land and settle on it and, by May 1920, a total of 9,041 had benefited, of whom some 2,250 had settled on land provided by the Government. Looking to the good of the country as a whole, the RSA saw that repatriation could not be entirely successful except as part of a far-sighted post-war policy which must include close labour-employer relations, rational manpower distribution, development of new industries and State ownership of some of them, a broad hydro-electric plan, and better fiscal policy. All these were advocated in 1919; but this was too soon. The RSA was ahead of its time and it took the depression of a dozen years later to convince the country of the need for such measures. One practical step to cope with unemployment among returned men (as well as to help children in the war-devastated areas of France) was the pre-Anzac Day sale of poppies, which began in 1922; three-quarters of the proceeds were devoted to unemployment relief. Looking even farther afield, the RSA took part in a conference at Cape Town in 1920 which laid the foundations of the British Empire Service League, and its delegates there advocated support for the League of Nations.
The enthusiasm which had carried the RSA this far, however, began to wane. Quick March ceased publication in 1923, to be succeeded in the following year by the RSA Review, which has appeared regularly ever since. Membership fell by 30 per cent per year until 1926. Then the trend changed. By 1930 the figures were moving upwards and at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 they reached 31,549 members. With the stimulus of another war, which took even more men and women overseas, membership rose to 136,119 in 1947. It dwindled again from then onwards, but began to rise again in 1955. For some years it has held fairly constantly between 90,000 and 100,000 and in 1964 was 93,286.
The period of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath presents a mixed picture of RSA activities. With the experience behind them of the repatriation of First World War veterans, the leadership cooperated closely with governmental bodies in the development and operation of a comprehensive rehabilitation policy. In 1940 the NZRSA (which came to stand for Returned Services' Association in recognition of the enlarged contribution in the Second World War of New Zealand naval and air forces, as well as of the mercantile marine, the men of which, if they served in foreign waters, were also eligible for membership) strongly urged the introduction of military conscription and undoubtedly expedited it. In 1942, after RSA representations, tenancy legislation was amended in the interests of men abroad on active service. At the same time the RSA attitude towards conscientious objectors seemed attuned to the sensibilities of an earlier generation and by the end of the Second World War many people thought it illiberal.
This last was one of the points taken up by a group of returned servicemen early in the Second World War who felt that the RSA did not adequately express their views or serve their interests and who therefore formed a separate organisation, the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force Association, with headquarters in Auckland. The first annual conference in July 1945 was told, as evidence of the need for independent association, that of the 202 delegates to the Dominion Council of the NZRSA the previous month only 36 had served in the Second World War. On many matters the two bodies saw eye to eye. Both worked hard to overcome the housing shortage which handicapped resettlement in the immediate post-war years. Each made their contribution to the rehabilitation of ex-service personnel, though the strength, prestige, and experience of the RSA gave its efforts more weight. The 2 NZEF Association nevertheless gained representation on many of the boards and other official bodies which dealt with ex-service matters and did something to influence pension and land legislation. By January 1945 it possessed 15 branches, and by November 1946 the total was 35 and the membership more than 12,000. Echoing the policy of the RSA after the First World War, the 2 NZEF Association prayed in a petition to Parliament in September 1946 for action to stabilise the price level and restrict the issue of “currency and credit” to the Reserve Bank and other “properly constituted authority”. The widest divergence of views between the two associations, however, concerned compulsory military training, which came to a head in 1949. The RSA cooperated closely with the Government to win support for compulsory military training in a national referendum; but the 2 NZEF Association at first opposed peacetime conscription. New Zealand should rely on her navy and air force and maintain only a tiny regular army. This was an original and startling suggestion; but the association soon retracted it and supported compulsory military training. From then onwards the influence of the 2 NZEF Association, never very strong in the Wellington area, diminished. Its headquarters moved to Invercargill and for some years its monthly newspaper, Kiwi, which had started in Auckland in September 1944 with a circulation of 10,000 copies, was published in Dunedin. The last issue was that of September-October 1957. A few branches still carry on social activities, but the association no longer has a voice at a national level in ex-service affairs.
The NZRSA and its affiliated but autonomous branch associations carry on social and welfare work, conducting Poppy Day and Rose Day appeals and acting as intermediaries between needy ex-servicemen or their dependants and the various governmental or other public bodies concerned. And at the annual Dominion council the delegates express their views on matters, such as compulsory military training and defence policy, and the Dominion Executive Council acts accordingly. An important move in recent years was to form the World Veterans Federation, which has members in the Communist bloc. One annual bone of contention between the RSA and other sections of the community relates to the way Anzac Day is observed. By law it is observed in all respects as a Sunday and the RSA wants to keep it so; but many people, especially younger ones to whom war is not even a memory, resent conviviality in RSA clubrooms on a day when hotels are not allowed to open and would like a less solemn official observance, at least in the afternoons.
Though the RSA is the dominant voice of ex-service interests, there are many other organisations of particular groups. One of these, the New Zealand Home Servicemen's Association, has a membership which in general does not overlap with that of the RSA. It was formed in Wellington in 1943 to represent the interest of the tens of thousands of men who took up arms for the defence of New Zealand but did not serve overseas. Its membership in 1946 reached a peak of 13,788 and is at present (1962) 3,265. It carries on social and welfare work. Another large and lively body is the New Zealand Ex-Prisoners of War Association, with a present membership of 4,000, over half of those who are eligible–a remarkable proportion. It was formed in 1948 and now has 30 branches. Besides welfare and social activities it does all it can for the New Zealand Red Cross Society in return for services rendered to members when they were prisoners. Its official organ, Pow-Wow, appears quarterly. A more select group, but one which has done invaluable work for its members and others, is the New Zealand War Amputees' Association. This was established in 1918 at the New Zealand Military Hospital at Oatlands Park, Surrey, England, with district associations in due course in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. The national body was formally set up in 1940 and the maximum membership was reached in 1954: 800 financial members out of about 1,300 war amputees of both world wars. Five branches now exist, as well as the district associations, and membership is 563. Besides the normal social and welfare work it helps war amputees to get the best possible treatment, artificial limbs and appliances, and adequate training and employment. Several organisations are affiliated or associated with similar bodies abroad, usually in the United Kingdom. The Ex-Royal Navalmen's Association, for example, formed in 1929, has some 20 branches and 3,000 members. The New Zealand Air Force Association, formed in 1945, has 22 branches and 2,300 members and is affiliated with the World Veterans Federation and the World Organisation of the Lamp of Brotherhood (Lampada della Fraternita). The Merchant Navy has a similar association. The New Zealand Federation of Brevet Clubs, formed in 1953, has 14 branches and 2,000 members. Of many associations of men who served in the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force there is the Main Body Association and various others, of which the Gallipoli Veterans' Association, of Wellington, is typical. This was formed in 1953, reached a membership of 300 in 1960, and now has 255 members. Among ex-service associations founded abroad which maintain branches here is the Australian Imperial Force Association, the Wellington branch of which was formed in 1934. In 1947 it had 117 members, and now has 72. They cooperate with local RSAs for Anzac Day ceremonies and do welfare work among Australian ex-servicemen in New Zealand, and also for old people and orphans.
An entirely different kind of body working in this field is the Disabled Servicemen's Re-establishment League. A product of the depression, it was formed with statutory authority, in 1931, after years of RSA representations and in accordance with the findings of a royal commission. Funds came at first from New Zealand Expeditionary Force Canteen and Regimental Funds and later from the NZRSA and then the Government. Committees in the four main centres sought to encourage employers to engage disabled soldiers, to carry out vocational training for them, and, if necessary, to supplement their earnings. In 1932 the Wellington committee opened a retail shop to sell goods made by disabled servicemen, the first of many shops in various centres. There are at present seven shops, mostly catering for the tourist trade, and the profit from them helps to offset the loss in the factories operated by the league. These include artificial limb factories in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch and trade-training centres in those cities and at Dunedin, Invercargill, and Napier. Since 1954 the league has widened its activities to include civilians who are disabled. The Employers' Federation, Manufacturers' Federation, the Federation of Labour, the Patriotic Fund Board, the Order of St. John and the Red Cross Society, the South African War Veterans' Association of New Zealand, the War Amputees' Association, and the Civilian Amputees' Association have all been associated with the RSA and the Government in this venture. They have helped it to become a large and successful trading enterprise with assets (apart from Government-owned buildings) of nearly £250,000. In so doing they have given thousands of people, servicemen and civilians, a sense of purpose and have encouraged them to conquer their disabilities. The league has a high reputation abroad, has pioneered many developments in artificial limbs and appliances, and has even trained an Indonesian under the Colombo Plan to make artificial limbs.
by Walter Edward Murphy, B.A., Lecturer, School of Political Science and Public Administration, Victoria University of Wellington.