A SOUTH AFRICAN VIEW OF THE WAR

Grey River Argus, 13 February 1915, Page 6

A SOUTH AFRICAN VIEW OF THE WAR

AN OLD MAN'S PATRIOTISM. A resident of Johannesrburg, writing: to a friend in Canterbury, -under date of January 4th, says : — "At Christmas time Aye remembered you and our other New Zealand friends and felt soriry with you, and *so proud, too, that your only son Avas Avhere danger called on England's privileged ones to defend right and the sanctity of smaller nations too work out their OAvn salvation, and to back up our nations sacred word that ©mailer nations should have that simple right It is a pity that the old ones ore so. useless in this righteous strife — it should be their' duty and right to die if the arbitramemt demanded death. Such as I have been sheltered under the folds of the much-crossed old flag for a life that is getting long, and has had much joy and pride in being' -so sheltered. And now, when itJs unlifting and all that it stands fox is unnecessary, I am but a dog-eared backnumber—and useless. Tell your wife that under her natural sorrow at tihe absence of her only son" there must be a great uplifting pride. Her gracious upbringing has shown her son. that ; duty stood before his young wife and his dear parents— a noble upbringing, » indeed, in these soft and selfish days.. And this pride must be to her a continual comfort, and to* his wife, too: And this pure yojung English -blooded NeAV Zealander has not even seen the Old Motherland, nor have his patents, either; My God! What a country • England must be to so stir her des- ' cendanlts sio> remote in distance yet so . close in sympathy. Indeed, not in vain have those great forbears of ours lived, struggling, and often dying, Jo build up such a set of traditions of t duity ond gratitude to the ragged old flag, that all this, and much more, stands for. Compare it with the look back of the Prussians. . . . What --a look-back compared with ours ! j "Our local rebellion, (though it has cost us several hundred lives, is just i*a little piffle compared to the pushing back of these modern Huns... At one time the shooting was quite near Johan nesburg, and all Aye old ones, to the number of 21,000 .along this sixty miles of reef towns, used to turn out arid ,be again ragged by our drill instruto tors — and I think we should have made things quite lively, too, for these rotten robbers. Anyway, they would not risk us. You see, we were in the main too stiff to' run much, _oi wo should have just taken cover and laid down to it and spat .303 at them as straight as possible, and much of it. Anyway, that *s ever so Aye can. -safely s&y Avhat might have happened. Down in the fever counittry the. young* me;n ..were not wa.rted at the front — malaiia

subjects are so often laid up. It occurs when you are a bit gagged and thinThe shivers commence, to be followed by a temperature, and two or three days don't-care-a-damn-what-happens weakness, which unfits a ma,n. for soldiering. Practically all our rebels are shot, or run in. Some^of the rebels were xery free with the* white flag 'biz.' and then a smashing volley; but one corps, of rebel hunters {fully half of Dutch descent, too), tha. I heard of lost a few men in this manner, and then exterminated one lot of beitween seventy and eighty that hoisted the poc k-t-handkerchief. They did not trust it again, and worried on un**^ *^ e y had shot the lot, and that there should be no talk, they did not bring a single, horse or rifle of that 1 lot. So you see that the Dutch who fought us and have .always till now denied 'the white flag accusation, are from now on to be silent against that charge.'