Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1916. SOME MEN WHO STAY.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 2888, 7 March 1916, Page 2

Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1916. SOME MEN WHO STAY.

In our editorial article yesterday on "Men Who Won't Go" we dealt with tho eligible unencumbered shirkers who stay at home because they havo something to lose by going to war. They are enjoying wealth and safety whilst other men are doing the lighting for them. In the old days in England owners of land had to provide fighting forces for the King in times of war. In those days, the landowner and his sons were the first out against the foe. How times have changed! In these days some of our landowners are so gracious that they permit and even urge their employees to enlist.— but they prohibit their sons from helping to defend the very land thoy hold by grace of the other fellows who arc doing tho fighting. But there aro quite a number of lighting-fit men in New Zealand—there are some in the Feilding district—who are not at tho war and yet who do not deserve the stigma of "shirker" attached to them. Thoy are single men with responsibilities as great as those of married men —responsibilities which they take even more seriously than many married men take theirs. We wero discussing this question with ono of these young mon. "Take my own case," he said. "I'm not really a shirker. I'd go.ho, tho Avar like a shot—l'd have been into it long ago—but who is to tahe care of n\v mother? I'm her only incans of support. Supposing I enlist. What happens to her? Supposing I come back, like some of our fellows, who are already back, a scuiiinvaltd—who's going to look after mother? If the Government or the Patriotic Society will fix up my ease satisfactorily, then I will go to the war readily. But I won't sacrifice my mother's future even for the sake of the Empire!" There's tlie rub and there's a problem that will have to be eased or solved if the war extends into ii__;t year.