RECRUITING IN CHRISTCHURCH

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 69, 21 March 1916, Page 7

RECRUITING IN CHRISTCHURCH

C.D.C. TAKES IT OVER. LABOUR AND THE PROBLEM. (Br Telegraph.—Special to ••Star.") CHRISTCHCRCH, this day. The Citizens' Defence Corps has come to the assistance of the Mayor, who was oinable to command the support of canvassens for the new recruiting scheme, and will do the -work. In a letter in answer to the Mayor's invitation to attend a meeting of citizens to start a new campaign the local Trades and labour Council says: "The matter to lie dealt with at the meeting, however, has been already fully considered by us. We are most uncomproniisingly opposed to any form of compulsory military service or conscription, and would point out that this question was also considered at the recent Labour Conference held in Wellington, at which we were represented, and whose findings we have endorsed. It was there pointed out tbat provided men on active service were sufficiently equipped, maintained, and remunerated and their dependents adequately provided for. the voluntary scheme cannot possibly fail while a majority of men of Imilitary age are in favour of prosecuting the war. That conference unanimously agreed that a soldier's pay should not he legs than the trade union j rate of wages for the beat-paid artisans.' (The pensions for soldiers and their dependents should bo made much more liberal, and the pension for -wife and. children should not be made a matter of charity, but a matter of right. Under the present Act a soldier's wife and children have to plead poverty before receiving the full pension. "We would point out that labour's proposal cannot ■be objected to on account of cost, the value of exports during 1015 amounted to £9,000.000 more than approximately the same quantity of produce realised in 1913. This £0,000,000 therefore largely represent* war profits, and should be confiscated before any form of compulsion or conscription of human life is introduced." We trust that our attitude will bo endorsed by your meeting, and that you will duly impress upon the Government the advisability of adopting labour's wgtcs-i tions for the .better treatment of sol-1 diere and their dependents. I