IN PRAISE OF NEW ZEALANDERS

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 9, 11 July 1917, Page 8

IN PRAISE OF NEW ZEALANDERS

TO THE EDITOR. ■-. , i_Sir, —It is quite refreshing, to read. in • your paper a paragraph containing the testimony of the late Hon. F. E. Winchcombe, M.L.C., who died recently, m Bombay. . At . the present time Mr.: Winchcombe's remarks ought to be reverberated . throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand. This gentle- . man had met scores of New Zealanders, . in London, and he described tkm as "A very fine lot of chaps, models of soldierly bearing and good behaviour." I have been grieved a-nd distressed at the accusations which have been made against the characters and behaviour of our New Zealand boys by some people whoare living among onrselves You ■will remember, sir, as well as I do, that some people said, that the soldiers were so drunken here in Wellington that they were blocking the swing doors of thehotel "bars, and lying jupon the floors. It was demonstrated. that there was no truth in this fabrication, but such a statement has found credence in the minds of a number of people. Why, it was[ only the other day that a reverend gentleman, speaking, to a meeting of other reverend gentlemen, who endorsed this allegation—:"The way the liquor traffic," lie said, "was allowed to ruin the soldiers, was simply scandalous, and the Government,' 1 he added, ''should prevent the sale of drink to soldiers in khaki." The Minister for Defence denied this accusation. He declared there, was no truth in it. And having seen the New Zealanders abroad, the Hon. F. E. Winchcombe says quite voluntarily,. "I have not come acrosa one drunken or disorderly New Zealander. They do the Dominion every credit, these ,boys with / '.the'coir-puncher Jiats; God bless them!" It was only the other day, too, that. The Post published an extract from the report of Mr. R. H. Nolan, the hon. secretary of the Soldiers' Hostel at Russell Square, London, under date 27th February of this year. This report stated that during the months of December and January 32,000 beds had been booked by New Zealanders,, and "only one man during the whole of thalt time had to be reproved for misconduct, a record," wrote f Mr. Nolan, "of which every New Zealander may be, proud." There are fathers and mothers in this country, thousands of them among your readers, who are distressed by the repeated allegations against the conduct of our soldiers, and you can well under-.. stand how gratifying it is to them to . know that in the 'judgment of the unprejudiced their conduct on duty and off duty is incomparable among men. Notwithstanding that facts are- all against them, quite a; number .of socalled leaders are continuously traduc- . ing, and that publicly, the characters; of our soldiers. It seems to be all for the ' purpose of advancing their own political ends: and rembarrassing the : National Government. Suck action ;on the part of any political party: is neither honest nor, patriotic—l am, etc., r 7th July. ' J. G.