WHO GOES NEXT?

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3161, 13 August 1917, Page 6

WHO GOES NEXT?

Sir.—lf the Act is to be revised and the Second Division must have a longer rope given it, why do we not send single men over 45 before boys under twenty? Those who have nine-tenths of their manhood and of the period during which they would naturally help to increase the future population to spend, are surely worth' more to tho country than those who have spent seven-tenths of both. Why write a cheque for .£9O when .£3O would fill the bill, and one's account is perhaps overdrawn already ? But, perlians, tne authorities think otherwise. One of the difficulties in the way of the mobilisation of the Second Division as originally proposed and decided on is perliaps represented by the youngish man with a youngish wife, but only one or two very young children. This pair would not or could not be bothered with a large or an early family. And now tho unfortunate man may have his little wife well willed nnd his little farm well tilled, and his. little house well filled, all reft from him at one stroke! The elder men, morriid or not, have more weight, financial and political, than the boys, no doubt. Wo may draft off youngsters just when they are beginning to look forward to earning a man's wage and casting a man's vote, and give themfiye or six bob a day and a chance of one m five or six of getting killed. But when the four or five who cscape the deathdealing contraptions of up-to-date warfare return, whether crippled or not, they will have a vote and will oxorciso it.-I am, MApsHALL _ ' Mangatainoka, August 10, 1917.