DODGING CONSCRIPTION

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 134, 3 December 1915, Page 8

DODGING CONSCRIPTION

PARTY FROM NEW ZEALAND AR-

RIVES AT SAN FRANCISCO.

(Received December 3, 1 p.m.)

SAN FRANCISCO, 2nd December. A party of seventy Irishmen arrived here from New Zealand. They admitted that they left New Zealand because they were afraid of conscription. P. T. Sullivan said that in order to escape the New Zealand officials the party pretended they were going to England to enlist, wlu'le they really intended to make their homes in California.

[The above message is somewhat inaccurate. There were altogether over 50 young men, all eligible for military service, most of them single, who booked steerage by the Moana, which left Wellington for San Francisco on the 11th of last month. Out of this number, as far as a Post reporter, by careful investigation, was able to ascertain, about a dozen were New Zealanders, another five were Englishmen, born (one of whom was over 60 and another a cripple going home for treatment), one was a Dane or .Scandinavian, and one a Mormon. Over thirty were natives of Ireland, mostly from Donegal, Antrim, Kerry, and County Cork. The greater portion of the Irishmen who were leaving would only mention San Francisco as their destination. The majority of them were men apparently under thirty years of age, many of them residents of New Zealand for only a few years. Most of them were of the labouring class, and one or two had been, working on railway construction, while others had been engaged on similar work in the country. One young fellow of about twenty-five said quite candidly that he was not going to fight. He had had to work like a slave at ten years old in Ireland, and keep his mother on a shilling a day. and he felt no cause now to go and fight. Another said he was going away to join the "Irish Brigade." The great majority merely said that they were either going for a run home or were going for a look round. Most of them said they had filled in and posted their National Registration papers before leaving.]