"ONLY ONE WAY"

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 140, 13 June 1918, Page 7

"ONLY ONE WAY"

The Melbourne correspondent of Sydney Morning Herald forwarded the following message on sth June :—

Commenting upon this message, the Acting-Prime Minister (Mr. Watt) said that as far as he was able to judge from the cable advices the practice was to "scrap" one battalion from a brigade. During -the past few months strong appeals had been made to reinforce our armies._ The Government- had predicted that if reinforcements were not forthcoming battalions would have to he "scrapped" to provide reinforcements. Many people disbelieve this prediction, but hero it was being realised. There was only cue way to prevent this sort of thing—that was' for recruiting figures to jump. The Government aad tho recruiting committees were doing all they could to direct the attention of the people to the gravity of the situation, particularly since the offensive in the third week of March. The Ministry hoped by this time that, with this news from tho oflieial reporter, there would be a'realisation of what it meant to our boys who were fighting. These batta-1-lions had all earned names which would live, and to lose their identity by being scrapped was perhaps one of the keenest punishments that could be inflicted upon them.