New Zealand Opinions

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 January 1917, Page 1

New Zealand Opinions

AS EXPKEfe'SKD EDITORIALLY. "Wo are well aware that large a, percentage of the rural populaton in every, part of the Dominion has responded nobly to the call -of arms. We Are aware, also, that, despite tlve i'iso in prices, thousands of small farmers have still to work early and late for a little more than a bare subsistence. On the other hand, it is well-known that large profits have been made out of. the war by farmers, as a class, and this fact will naturally arouse the strongest possible opposition to any wholesale concession to farmers, on the aleged -ground that the continuance of thffir work is essential to the safety of the Empire or the wealth-producing power of the Dominion. In one sense the same argument might he advanced for any able-bodied industrialist, and the decision in each man's case should bo grounded on the evidence available ai to the nature and value of his wo'rk, and the possibility of replacing him or doing without him."—-Petone Chronicle,: >

"The German Government is now enlisting the services of the Socialists in peace intrigues in the hope that tliev will' be able to influence Socialists of other count,res to demand a cessation of hostilities. The last- desperate reliance upon a hitherto ignored agency reminds one of the old lady, on a sinking (ship who, when told she must now trust to Providence, asked 'Is is as bad as that?' Rangitikei Ad. vocate. "Somo well-intentioned contemporarise are talking a great deal of nonsense about organizing labor for work on the farms. They desire that the Government shall give the country a load! Pome of them imagine apparently that some strange efficacy will descend upon the butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers the moment they are habited in khaki and drafted into the non-combatant service—through i ill health or otherwise—and that farm I work will come to them as a sort of | natural instinct. All such schemes look well on paper, The one objection to them is that they are impracticable. Like Oaptaiin Walker's married man with a family of milkers, they don't cover the whole ground. If the Government- attempts to handle this question it will make a- mess of it. There will be plenty of "machinery," but not steam in the boiler." —Manawatu Times.

''The Military Board, while at Dannevirke, promptly dealt with some of those families who sons, through parental and other influences!, have denied their ! able-bodied services to their country, but we are astounded that the board lias gone out of the town without dealing with the most glaring cases of family shirking. There arc well-to-do families in this district with five, six and seven sons enriching themselves while men with not a tenth of their property at stake sacrifice all theiir private prospects and life itself. Those shirking families were the bugbear of voluntary recruiting, and each successive casualty list intensifies the feeling against them.—Dannevirke News. —