CORRESPONDENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 86, 11 April 1912, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

■' * COMPULSORY MILITARY. TRAINING. TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, — If tho Defence Act is so' sweepingly popular as you would have us be lieve, would you tell us bow it is that tha Government darq not put it in operation against _ men with beards — and votes f Male persons, not otherwise .exempted, are undor "the universal obligation to ba trained, 1 ' up to the age of. twenly-nva, and between that age and^thirty, thoy are to' be drafted irito the reserve. Yet co sedulously has tho press referred to the matter as if ifc affected youths only- and so shy aro ihe Government of the men with votes {hat tho -public has come to think that no person, over twenty-one years of age is concerned: If everybody except "shirkers," "poltroons," "unthinking irresponsibleE," . and such like worthless persons are opposed to the Act, as . newspaper editors, presidents of chambers of qommerce, and other eminent personages would have us believe, why is not the law put in operation "leek, stock, and barrel?" I Personally 1 congratulate heartily the young fellows who Tiavo gono to prison in defiance of this infamous Act, and I predict with confidence that our pro-gore Jingoes will get all the fight they are looking for before the lant hjis been heard of it. The Kitcheners, the Baden Powells, and tho Godleys may be great men among Bengalese ryots or Egyptian fellaheen, but they are not going to rulo us. — I am, etc., P. J. O'REGAN. Bth April, 1912.