SOLDIERS OF ALIEN ORIGIN

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, 24 October 1916, Page 5

SOLDIERS OF ALIEN ORIGIN

ACTION BY

NEW ZEALAND

AUTHORITIES

It is stated that the New Zealand military authorities at the front have had to consider "the whole question or the employment, as soldiers, of men deriving their- extraction from foreign parentage." This they have had to do purely as a precautionary measure, and with considerable reluctance, inasmuch as the loyalty of these men has always been above suspicion. There is no individual case in which there has been reason for doubting the sentiments of those New Zealand soldieKS who happen to be of foreign birth; but, as a matter of precaution, it was decided ,that men of enemy extraction should be withdrawn from the front line-, and redistributed in employment in other capacities. In piirsuance of this decision, 70 men from various units were brought back to England from France, and put on the strength of the reserve group at Sling, whence they will be distributed as opportunity occurs. They will probably be engaged in the Labor Companies on lines of communication. It is fair to state that a considerable number of these men are Croats from the North of Auckland, and that their enemy extraction is purely technical, inasmuch as the Croats are one of the Slav nationalities who hope to be liberated from Austria by the present war.