THE CRY FOR RECRUITS

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 154, 2 July 1917, Page 2

THE CRY FOR RECRUITS

. SYDNEY, June 20. J. lie cry /for recruits is becoming -marper and more insistent every day" Almost cnily, the papers' publish long casualty 1-sts and daily the recruiting •■irga-iisaUous report a' smaller total of volunteers. .The distress and disgust of right-thinking people, though, are not caused.by Australia's sho win-- in the war. A return, published the other day showed that 360,000 out of Australia s less than 5,000,000 had --nhsted voluntarily—which compares well with Canada's ■ 400,000 out of ■nearly 8,000,000, though it is not quite up to' New, Zealand's average. flic Australians are not ashamed of their total, but they are most bitterly ashamed of their shirkers. One cannot lose signt of those shirkers, somehow. Here m the city, while married n.n are going off to the front, and the original Anzacs bad. home again with an honorable discharge, are re-enlist-Irfk I 1? 8® yoUi Dg me^ are blatantly, dehan-ly .and unashamedly in. e yi_ dence But it may be said of them that they arc wrc a thinking class and the discredit of them lies at the '4?°^/ ot.-^'oxis organisations like Hi« Ll,/ whose disloyal, anti-British,- utterly stupid utterances, while ignored by the great majority of people, are held by sueu foolish young men to justify them in their folly.

rn s"!!n '-emuting position was Jons..lerod by the Federal Parliament £wt week, and finally a Recruiting Committee., of six men from oa-h party .was appointed. What it E P-oiiig to.dn, raid how it is going to improve r-4. c work done almost Via.£ by the present recruitinaoygarwsat.on no one seems to know" a_onTTwl_ilo there are persistent but unofficial rumors that tho conscription Msue with all its chjmor and fury, win bo-before tho country again atE veryearly date. b