PSYCHOLOGY OF SHIRKING.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 302, 19 August 1916, Page 2

PSYCHOLOGY OF SHIRKING.

What is it makes a man shirk the responsibility of every able-bodied man to go forth and help in the defenco of individual and national liberty? In some cases it is sheer cussedness, such as finds expression in the perverseness of the Reel Fed. In other cases it is just plain funk—an outcrop of that yellow streak which is tho shame of every man when it is disclosed to his fellow. In somo cases—and, alas, that it is so iv young men—it is that love of money and money-making which is proving the root of tho evil shirking that has been in. them until this day. There is something lacking in a manhood that can resist the Great Adventure. A love of adventure- is inherent in the Anglo-Saxon, and it has been tho very loose-footedness of him that hay made him the greatest of the world's colonisers. His wanderlust has J made him roam tho world for trash |

Holds and pastures new. Tho shirker prefers to bo an adventurer in finance only. Bo it never so quiet, thoro's no placo liko homo—unless it bo the oftico. Tho rights and wrongs of his neighbour concern him not tho last little bit—unless it bo to mako profit out of them. Belgium? Franco? Britain? What are they but mere geographical terms! Patriotism? Freedom? Tho right to live? Moro sentiment I Tho shirker has no soul to stir. He not only allows another man "to light that ho (tho shirker) may go on enjoying the riches of his office and his farm, but ho is actually taking advantage of tho absonce of tho man who is fighting for tho continued liberty of tho subject tho world over.