UNITY ESSENTIAL
THE PREMIER AND A RESOLUTION
The Prime Minister (Right Hon. W. F. Massey) yesterday received from Millerton a. copy of a resolution passed at a public meeting there upon the question of conscription. The resolution was as follows.-—"That this meeting of Millerton citizens regards the attempt to fasten conscription on New Zealand as disruptive and dangerous, and declares that the success of conscription would be the achievement of Prussianism. We are justified in regarding the attempt to. Prussianise New Zealand as an endeavour to provide for the ultimate defeat of working-class ideals. Finally, we demand the nationalisation of capital as the most effective method of providing for the circumstances created by the war. In the opinion of the meeting, the volunteer system has never been given- a fair trial, since no guarantee is given to anyj one' inclined to volunteer that their de- ' pendents will be properly provided for." Mr. Massey yesterday replied as follows : — "I believe that most of the citizens of your town and district are just as willing to .do their duty as the citizens of any other part of New Zealand. I am very strongly of opinion that, if conscription Tjecomes necessary in the Dominion during the present war, it will be because we have here—and I would rather not believe this—a number of shirkers and anti-militarists, many of them without dependents, who cannot be induced -by any other method to do their duty to their country. "This is not a time for mischievous attempts to set class against class, such as seem to me to be iuciicatecHh the latter portion of your resolution-. On'the contrary, this is a time for all classes and all sections of the community to stand together against a common enemy, one of whose aims, and, I believe, the principal one, is to subject British people to a tyranny such as they have not experienced for a thousand years. Heaven help New Zealand if 'she ever became Prussianised in the real sense of the word."
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19151217.2.8
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 146, 17 December 1915, Page 2
Word Count
336UNITY ESSENTIAL Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 146, 17 December 1915, Page 2
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