(1868–1938).

Soldier and administrator.

A new biography of Richardson, George Spafford appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

General George Richardson was born at Arundel, England, on 14 November 1868, and as a youth was destined for trade, but early in his teens he took the Queen's shilling and joined the Royal Artillery. His story from this point on has a distinct flavour of the “powder-monkey to admiral” progress of another age. He spent 16 years in the ranks as a gunner but rose to the highest posts before he retired from the Army after 42 years' service. Like some other notable military personalities in the New Zealand forces, it was a case with General Richardson of “once a gunner always a gunner”, and no matter how high he climbed he was always proud of his work for 18 years as Master Gunner Instructor to the New Zealand Army and Director of Artillery. While serving with his regiment at Gibraltar he was chosen for special promotion and went to the English gunnery school at Shoeburyness. Passing out at the top of his class, he was recommended to the New Zealand Government as a gunnery instructor. He arrived in New Zealand in 1891, and by 1912 had risen to the rank of major. At this stage he returned to England to study at the Staff College, Camberley, and on graduating in 1913 was appointed New Zealand representative at the War Office. At the outbreak of the First World War, he was serving on the Imperial General Staff, and immediately went to France with the Royal Naval Division as Chief of Staff. He organised a force of 25,000 men for the defence of Antwerp and then went back to London as a lieutenant-colonel to help refit the Naval Division for Gallipoli. He sailed with that force as Quartermaster-General, moved for a time to the Salonika front, and then returned to England as General Officer commanding the New Zealand Division in the United Kingdom. At the end of the war, in the face of offers of high command in the British Army, he returned to New Zealand and became General Officer in Charge of Administration under Major-General Sir Edward Chaytor. But the end of the road was in sight. The man who had planned and directed the demobilisation of the New Zealand Division in 1918 and 1919 now found himself required to carry out, due to economic conditions, a policy of heavy retrenchment in the Defence Department. In 1923 the outlook for soldiering was so unpromising that General Richardson retired, but in the same year he became the Administrator of Western Samoa. In that role he was greatly assisted by a long-standing interest in, and study of, conditions in the Pacific, and despite the extraordinarily difficult period through which the territory was then passing, his work among the natives was specially commended by the League of Nations. In 1928 he left Samoa for Geneva where he represented New Zealand at the League of Nations. General Richardson returned to New Zealand in the following year and settled in Auckland where he resumed his work for ex-servicemen, and in particular for amputees and other disabled soldiers, which was begun in the demobilisation years. He also took an active interest in civic affairs and after several terms on the Auckland City Council he became deputy mayor of the city. He was busy with his municipal duties right up to the day of his sudden death at the age of 70, at his home in Remuera on 11 June 1938.

It can be said of General Richardson that he was a born administrator as well as a born soldier. The somewhat exalted circles in which he moved during the war precluded those personal contacts with New Zealand troops which he would have preferred, but when he took command of the Division in England in the last stages of the conflict, and addressed himself to the task of shipping the troops home, he demonstrated to all ranks that behind his official and regimental exterior there existed a deep sympathy and understanding of the problems that faced men on their return to civilian life.

Richardson married in 1892 at Wellington, Caroline Warren, by whom he had three sons and two daughters.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• New Zealand Herald, 13 Jun 1938 (Obit).

(NOTE: The records from 1946 do not give the year of birth.)

Biographical details of some of the above are given in the Expatriate section; see alsoGeneral Index.

The Rhodes Scholarships arise from a bequest made under the will of Cecil Rhodes, a former Prime Minister of Cape Colony. Each year candidates are nominated by New Zealand universities, but the final selection is made by a special committee presided over by the Governor-General. The number of scholarships allocated to New Zealand varies, but there are now usually two every year. The scholarships are tenable for two years, but in special circumstances a further year may be granted. Their value, originally £300 per annum, is now £750 per annum. Candidates in New Zealand must be male, British subjects, unmarried, and between the ages of 19 and 25 years in the year of their election. Selection is made on the basis of scholastic abilities and attainments, moral character, qualities of leadership, and physical vigour as exemplified by prowess in sport.

Rhodes scholars are expected to live at Rhodes House, Oxford, during the tenure of their scholarships and to study at one of the Oxford colleges.

William Barnard Rhodes (1807–78), Robert Heaton Rhodes (1815–84), George Rhodes (1816–64), and Joseph Rhodes (1826–1905).

Pioneer settlers.

A new biography of Rhodes, William Barnard appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

A new biography of Rhodes, George appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

The Rhodes brothers were four of the 14 children of William Rhodes (1781–1869), a tenant farmer of Epworth, Lincoln; Plains House, the Levels, Yorkshire; and of Balby, near Doncaster, who came to New Zealand in the days before organised settlement and played an active part in the early political, business, and pastoral life of this country. They were men of shrewd judgment, bustling energy, and Yorkshire determination, and all of them amassed considerable wealth. Their descendants are numerous and concerned today principally with the land and the professions.

William Barnard, oldest of the family, led the way to New Zealand and encouraged his brothers to follow. To one brother he wrote this advice, and it seems to have been adopted as a pattern of behaviour by the others, judging by their success: “You must be enterprising, obliging, and not afraid of hard work, nor show any improper pride. Above all things avoid Public Houses and whores.” Before coming to New Zealand, William traded to various parts of the world in the brig Harriet, of which he was captain and part owner. In July 1836, on his first visit to New Zealand, he sailed into Port Cooper, now Lyttelton Harbour, in the barque Australian, a whaler belonging to a Sydney firm in which he became partner. During that visit he climbed the Port Hills and wrote the first recorded description of the Canterbury Plains. Rhodes returned to New Zealand in the barque Eleanor in November 1839, bringing 40 Durham cattle with which to establish the first cattle station in the South Island. The animals were swum ashore near Akaroa. Two early settlers, William Green and his wife, were brought from Sydney and left to tend the stock. Rhodes then sailed up the east coast of the North Island and established trading posts in Hawke's Bay and Poverty Bay, claiming the land in the trading posts in the name of his firm, Cooper, Holt, and Rhodes. Late in 1840 Rhodes established himself on the foreshore opposite what is now Courtenay Place, Wellington, and built the first wharf there, trading as W. B. Rhodes and Co., but he also continued to take up land in the North Island and, in partnership with two brothers, shared the South Island properties. His Wellington land included a sheep run on the hills of the present Wadestown and Highland Park, extending to Kaiwharawhara; another of 30,000 acres, Heaton Park, was near Bulls. Rhodes, whose interests were wide and diverse, built a large house known as “The Grange” at Wadestown and lived there until he died on 11 February 1878. W. B. Rhodes was twice married, but his only family was a daughter, Mary Ann, by a Maori woman. She contested her father's will, took it to the Privy Council, and was awarded “upwards of three-quarters of a million pounds”. This daughter married William Moorhouse in England, and their eldest son, William Barnard Rhodes Moorhouse, who legally adopted the name Rhodes Moorhouse, was the first airman to gain the Victoria Cross, which he won during the 1914–18 War. W. B. Rhodes was not distinguished as a public benefactor, despite his wealth, and was much criticised on that score. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1853 to 1866, member of the Wellington Provincial Council, 1861–69, and of the Legislative Council, 1871–78. He was founder of the New Zealand Shipping Co., the New Zealand Insurance Co., and the Bank of New Zealand. He claimed for his firm an area of land estimated at 1,000,000 acres in Hawke's Bay, but these claims were disallowed.

George Rhodes, second of the brothers to reach New Zealand, arrived in December 1843 and became manager of William's South Island property, and then partner. In 1847 they purchased Purau from the Greenwood Brothers (the earliest settlers there) in the first recorded sale of station property in New Zealand. Robert Heaton Rhodes reached Canterbury in 1850 and the three brothers then became partners in the Banks Peninsula properties, which had been extended. William directed policy from Wellington with some vigour. When the first four ships of the Canterbury Association reached Lyttelton in December 1850, they supplied the pioneers with fresh (but often tough) meat, milk, and vegetables from Purau. Possibly on the advice of a former whaler, Sam Williams, the brothers extended their pastoral activities to South Canterbury and, after an exploring trip to this virgin country in 1849, applied to the Governor, Sir George Grey, for a pasturage licence for an immense block between the Opihi and Pareora Rivers. The Levels County of today indicates part of this area, which was later reduced to three 25,000-acre blocks, each in the name of a brother. Robert and George drove sheep across the plains, and the station, known as the Levels, was established by 1851, with George as manager. Today the business centre of Timaru stands on the first 126 acres of land freeholded by the brothers, who had the foresight and sagacity to realise that any future town lay opposite the best landing places on the beach. No doubt generous gifts of sites for schools, churches, and other institutions helped to popularise this area, but time has proved the wisdom of these men. One of George's sons, A. E. G. Rhodes (1859-1922), was a member of the House of Representatives, and Mayor of Christchurch in 1901.

Robert Heaton had worked in Australia before joining his brothers in 1850. He lived at Purau and managed the peninsula properties, but later moved to Christchurch and built a large house known as Elmwood, where he died on 1 June 1884. He represented various districts in the Canterbury Provincial Council from 1853 to 1874; was a member of the Executive Council from 1869 to 1870; and represented Akaroa in the House of Representatives from 1871 to 1874. He was a founder of the New Zealand Shipping Co., the Kaiapoi Woollen Co., and other early business enterprises, and judged the cattle at the first Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Show in 1853. His eldest son, Robert Heaton (1861–1956), afterwards Sir Heaton Rhodes, K.B.E., K.C.V.O., began a long parliamentary career in 1899 and held ministerial rank from 1912 to 1925. He was a Legislative Councillor from 1925 to 1932 and again in 1934. Sir Heaton bred pedigree stock at Otahuna, Taitapu, which was also famous for its fields of daffodils, grown for him by A. E. Lowe, an expert gardener. Sir Heaton owned one of the finest known collections of New Zealand postage stamps.

Joseph Rhodes, who ran away to sea as a youth, joined his brother William in 1843, and then established himself in business as butcher and merchant in Wellington. He afterwards spent some years in Australia, but returned to New Zealand and became a man of property in Hawke's Bay, first acquiring the Clive Grange and then the Milton Grange estates. He played his part in Provincial Government in Hawke's Bay from 1859 to 1876. Joseph Rhodes was never a partner in the South Island land, but he bought and farmed some of the original areas claimed by his brother in Hawke's Bay. He died during a trip to Australia in 1905.

The Rhodes brothers were inseparable from the early development, both pastoral and commercial, of New Zealand, and were men of such enterprise that two of them at least, William Barnard and Robert Heaton, have been accused of a too highly developed self-interest. Political associations enabled them to keep their enterprising fingers on any major developments, and their property, most of it close to expanding cities, gave them immense advantages as land values increased. George, who died on 18 June 1864, at the age of 47, seems to have been the most gentle and reticent of this band of brothers, who lived and worked through hard, uncertain years into an age which can be regarded, in retrospect, as one of grasping opportunism for those who amassed property and retained it through the difficult years. These men made the most of advantages which came to them through their own industry, for they were not afraid to remove their coats to engage in physical labour when the necessity arose.

by Oliver Arthur Gillespie, M.B.E., M.M. (1895–1960), Author.

• Old Land Claims Files (MSS), National Archives
• George Rhodes of the Levels and His Brothers, Woodhouse, A. E. (1937)
• Jubilee History of South Canterbury, Andersen, J. C. (1916)
• South Canterbury, Gillespie, O. A. (1958).

(1822–99).

Politician and businessman.

William Hunter Reynolds was born on 1 May 1822 at Chatham, Kent, the third son of Thomas Reynolds, and Marion, née Hunter. His father was a retired naval officer who owned large cork plantations in Spain and Portugal, and Reynolds lived at Oporto until 1828, when a revolution forced his family to move to Edinburgh. He was educated at Nicholson Street Academy and Fountain-Bridge School, Edinburgh, but in 1834 returned to Lisbon where he attended an English school. When this closed down he entered his father's business and, from 1842 until 1850, managed its London office. From 1847 onwards he also carried on his own business.

About this time Reynolds met James Macandrew, who later married his sister, and through him he became interested in the affairs of the Otago Association. In 1850 Macandrew and Reynolds brought the schooner Titan to New Zealand in cargo, arriving at Port Chalmers on 15 January 1851. While Macandrew set up their joint mercantile business in Dunedin, Reynolds took the Titan on a very successful trading voyage to San Francisco and Sydney. He continued in partnership with Macandrew until 1858, during which time he visited Melbourne twice and England once to induce settlers to come to Otago under Cargill's immigration scheme. On several occasions during the absence of W. H. Cutten from Dunedin he edited the Otago Witness. After he withdrew from Macandrew and Co., Reynolds built a large warehouse on land he had reclaimed at the foot of Jetty Street. He was an original trustee of the Savings Bank (1864–99), a director of the Colonial Bank until its amalgamation with the Bank of New Zealand, and was a director of the Westport Coal Co., the Perpetual Trustees Estate and Agency Co., and the Otago Daily Times and Witness Co. He also speculated in land and had holdings in so many districts that at one time he claimed to be eligible to vote for every member of the Provincial Council.

Between 1853 and 1899 Reynolds was continuously in political life. He served on the Otago Provincial Council through the entire provincial era, being on the executive eight times and Speaker from 1867 to 1870. From 1863 until 1878 he represented Otago constituencies in the House of Representatives and was a member of the Legislative Council from 1878 until his death. He was a Cabinet minister from 1873 until 1876, serving as Minister of Customs under Waterhouse, Fox, and Pollen; as Colonial Secretary under Vogel; and, from 1884 until 1887, as minister without portfolio in the Stout Ministry. In 1876 his colleagues strongly favoured Reynolds to succeed Sir Francis Dillon Bell as Speaker of the House of Representatives; but when Vogel opposed his candidature he stood down voluntarily and suggested that Fitzherbert be nominated instead. Although personally in favour of retaining the provincial system, Reynolds was astute enough to realise by 1875 that this had outlasted its usefulness. As a member of the ministry which introduced the Abolition Bill, he and C. C. Bowen agreed to follow the majority, provided Vogel would retain the land revenues for the respective provincial districts. At this, O'Rorke, who would have supported abolition if these funds had been vested in the Central Government for the benefit of the colony as a whole, resigned from the ministry in disgust.

As a politician, both local and colonial, Reynolds was not particularly impressive. He lacked a commanding personality and was a poor speaker. But he deservedly won strong support locally for his advocacy of political separation for the South Island, and by the late sixties was at the height of his popularity. His alliance with Vogel, however, cost him dear. Admittedly it led him to ministerial office, but this defection from his former principles brought down upon him the censure of his friends, and in the election of December 1875 for Dunedin City, he was heavily defeated. After a short term as member for Port Chalmers he welcomed the opportunity to pass the remainder of his political career in the Legislative Council.

Outside of his political and business interests Reynolds took little active part in Dunedin in local affairs and social life. However, as one of the principal architects of the Otago education system, he continued to be prominent in that field and was an early advocate of land endowments for educational purposes. He was a member of the Provincial Board of School Commissioners, the Board of Church Property Trustees, and the Otago University Council, and was a governor of the High Schools.

In 1856, at Dunedin, Reynolds married Rachel Selina (1838–1928), daughter of William Pinkerton. He died at Montecillo, Mornington, Dunedin, on 1 April 1899 survived by his widow, four sons, and five daughters.

by Alexander Hare McLintock, C.B.E., M.A., DIP.ED. (N.Z.), PH.D.(LOND.), Parliamentary Historian, Wellington and Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• The History of Otago, McLintock, A. H. (1949)
• Otago Daily Times, 3 Apr 1899 (Obit)
• Evening Star (Dunedin), 3 Apr 1899 (Obit)

(Knightia excelsa). The family Proteaceae, to which the proteas belong, is widely represented in Australia and South Africa where there are some 50 genera each with but a single species. One of them is the rewarewa, a broadleaf forest tree which grows to heights of up to 90 ft, with trunks up to 3 ft in diameter. It is an attractive tree distinguished from a distance by its ascending branches. It occurs in lowland and montane forests from near the North Cape to about the Marlborough Sounds. It is most common in the shrubland and young forest developing on parts of the recent pumice eruptions of the central North Island. There it is almost a pioneer forest species.

The leaves of juvenile plants are linear-lanceolate, toothed, up to 12 in. long. Those on older saplings and trees are 6–7 in. long, narrow-oblong and coarsely toothed. The flowers are in stout racemes about 4–5 in. long and are covered with dense red-brown hairs. The racemes arise from between the leaves or from the naked part of the branchlets. The fruit is woody and pod-like. The wood is dense and strong but not at all durable. It is ornately marked by large medullary rays which show when the wood is cut along the radius. It is a showy ornamental wood but at present is out of fashion and little used.

Rewarewa regenerates strongly under suitable conditions and offers promise of management. The timber, however, would need to be in keener demand before much attention was paid to management.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.

(1808–88).

Father of journalism in New Zealand.

A new biography of Revans, Samuel appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Samuel Revans was born at Kennington, Middlesex, England, in 1808, the son of John Revans, a surgeon, and Eleanor, née Kenzie. He joined H. S. Chapman in Canada, where in 1833 they founded the Montreal Daily Advertiser, a journal which soon attained notoriety for its polemics in the cause of self-government. When Chapman returned to England in 1834, the paper closed down. Revans, however, remained in Canada until 1837 when journalistic indiscretions in connection with Papineau's revolt necessitated his hasty departure. He returned to England where he became involved in Chartist disturbances, and was associated with J. A. Roebuck, who introduced him to the New Zealand Company. In 1839 he secured appointment as editor of the New Zealand Gazette, bringing out the first issue from his office, 16 Little Pulteney Street, London, on 21 August 1839. Arriving in Port Nicholson in the Adelaide on 7 March 1840, he established his press in a prefabricated house on Petone beach (Britannia), where he issued the second number of the New Zealand Gazette and Britannia Spectator on 18 April 1840. Soon afterwards the paper moved to Wellington, where, in 1843, Revans sold his interest to William Fox. In the same year he published the first edition of Wellington Almanac, one of the colony's first reference books.

Severing his journalistic connections in 1847, Revans became an importer, but later was associated with William Mein Smith in a large Wairarapa sheep run. In 1851, in partnership with N. W. Levin and John Jury, he took an experimental cargo of timber and potatoes to California. The leases on his Wairarapa property expired in 1872 and were sold to G. M. Waterhouse (q.v.). He and Smith became interested in sawmilling but failed in this owing to difficulties of transportation. Revans took an active part in colonial politics, being secretary to the Port Nicholson Settlers' Council (1840) until this was dissolved by order of Governor Hobson. He represented Wairarapa – Hawke's Bay in the first Parliament (1853–55) and Hutt in the second (1856–58). He also represented the former district in Wellington Provincial Council (1854–57), serving twice (1854 and 1857) on Featherston's Executive.

A militant radical in his youth, Revans possessed a fiery temper which permeated all he wrote. His dependence upon the New Zealand Company made him support its cause with a vigour which led an angry opposition to found in 1845 the Wellington Independent as a protest. His farming and other interests did not prove any more profitable than that of journalism, and he died a bachelor in comparative obscurity at Greytown on 14 July 1888.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Newspapers in New Zealand, Scholefield, G. H. (1958)
• Crown Colony Government in New Zealand, McLintock, A. H. (1958)
• Evening Post, 16 July 1888 (Obit)
• New Zealand Times, 17 July 1888 (Obit).

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.

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.

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.