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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 250, 25 November 1914, Page 6

In 1911, the then member for Avon 'had no time for the compulsory military training scheme—he said so in a letter to a local resident. To-day he can refer in impassioned tones to oiii' " magnificent scheme of land defence," which, he has discovered in the last few days, was the thing that prevented the German Pacific squadron from raiding New Zealand. Earnest investigators, lacking Mr Russell's peculiar perspicacity, have attributed our immunity from such attack primarily to the presence of the Australian Fleet. The Admiralty, nay, the whole world, labours under the same delusion. Mr Russell has, at this late hour, made the startling revelation. Our system of national land defence must have improved, out of all knowledge since 1911, for Mr Russell to have fallen so much in love with it. It cannot be that he changed his attitude because this is election year, and 10,000 New Zealand soldiers are now on their way to aid the Empire in the greatest war in history. None but an enemy would suggest such a thing. At his meeting last evening Mr Russell became almost pathetic in stressing the close friendship that existed between himself and Mr Isitt, though the Liberal .candidate for Avon took eare to add that they had agreed to differ on the licensing question. Is anybody grinding aa axe?' The spectacle of Mr Prohibition Isitt playing" Jonathan to the David of Mr Three-fifths Russell, makes one' suspect that some innocent electors are in danger of being hoodwinked.