The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1916. ENEMIES AT HOME.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8462, 30 May 1916, Page 4

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1916. ENEMIES AT HOME.

Four Labour members of Parliament, and a little band of mal-j, contents stated to be trades unionists have announced Hheir determination to " call upon the workers k>f the country" to oppose the I Military Service Bill in every way and at every stage.'' We suppose that certain sections of tlie Labour Party are happy only when they are Opposing something, just, as some Liberals and Conservatives are in, their element when they find a flaw in the political arguments of their opponents. But at least it has never been possible to charge any honest member of the two chief political parties in New Zealand with a deliberately unpatriotic act. Yet this is what the resolution of the. Wellington meeting, of trades, unionists amounts to. It is even worse than that, for, as Mr Massey pointed out in his very effective reply to the miners at the State coal-mines, active opposition to any proposal that will help to bring the war to a speedy close is a grave breach of contract against the Dominion's soldiers now in the trenches in France. There are'thousands of trades unionists amongst those gallant men, and what defence will their fellow-workers have to the charge that they deliberately refused to send them help ? What | answdr will! these self-constituted militdry strategists make to the wives and children who have been made widows and orphans because of the trades unionists' asI sertion that their private beliefs j are of more, importance than the lives of their comrades? These are questions that will have to be answered, and though the men who are capable of ignoring the real issues arising out of them will probably turn a deaf ear to them, the public are not in a mood just now to tolerate either indifference or opposition from faddists or idealists. It does not appear to have occurred to these obstructionists that the Military Service Bill anticipates such tactics as they have threatened to employ. One section of the Bill provides, inter alia, that, "every person shall be guilty of an indictable offence, punishable by five years' hard labour, who does any act with intent to evade enrolment, calling up for service, or continuance in service; incites a person to commit any of the foregoing offences or to refuse to render the service required of him; or conspires with any other person to commit any of the offences mentioned." If. there_ had previously been an impression in the minds of the public that these clauses were somewhat drastic, the action of the trades unionists and the Labour members of Parliament will most probably have removed that idea. The big casualty list published in , the ({ Guardian '.' on Monday gives some indication of the nature of the fighting in which our men are engaged, and: it. emphasises the urgent need for replacing the wastage of war. The question for the people of New-Zealand is.: Are our men going to be left short-handed and exposed to all the dangers and disabilities, that; such a condition entails ,y or are they going to get all the help in men that we can give ' them ? There is no middle course, and 'if the public as a whole do not emphatically declare for the latter decision the lenven of disloyalists may create a good, deal of trouble and discontent. ,The surest preventive would be organised public meetings'of protest against the action of the Wellington trades unionists,'and Ashburton should lead the way with :> vigorous re joiner in the shape of a public endorsement of the Military Service Bill.