HAVE ENOUGH BEEN SENT?

Northern Advocate, 20 July 1917, Page 2

HAVE ENOUGH BEEN SENT?

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I was sorry to read Mr Chadwin's letter, on the above, in your issue of Monday last. It pained me to see him contributing to the difficulties of the Government by inventing excuses for Second Division shirkers.

I hate to be personal, but as he has not hesitated to impute unworthy motives to our rulers, who cannot reply, he cannot complain if he be treated with less ceremony than usual. He would have us believe that our Government is hurrying soldiers into the fir-ing-line for no better purpose than to enable us, when the war is over, to brag that we have contributed a greater percentage of our population than Australia or Canada have done. Shame! Shame!! Shame!!! Now, Sir, with your permission, I propose to turn tho gaslight on Mr Chadwin for three minutes in an effort to diecover his motive for writing as he did. Most of your Whangarei readers will remember that in tho early days of the war there was no more prominent member of the "last man and last shilling brigade" than -Mr Chadwin; no more enthusiastic worker in hunting up slackers in what we now call the First Division than Mr Chadwin. K. of X., we were told, wanted every man. Then why this bolt-face when it comes

to the Second Division? It was easy for him to push the other man's sons into the iiring-lino. The First Division did not touch him; he had no sons to give. But he has a few married daughters, so the Second Division is a different matter. It touches him directly, and so he would have us revert to voluntary recruiting. This would enable his sons-in-law to please themselves whether they stay at home or "go to Flanders. ,, Now, I-would not say, outright, that I really believe that the wind blows from that quarter, though if I did the inference would be a fair one. To illustrate the injustice of keeping back the Second Division while reinforcements are needed, I will make use of two well-known local men whose names shall be A. and B. A. is an invalid in poor circumstances, with five sons in the First Division, four of whom are with the colours. The fifth son will, I presume, be called up during August or September. B. is a well-to-do mail with four sons in the Second Division, all owners of farms, and harvesting increased profits on account of the war. Where is the justice in sending all A.'s sons to bleed, and may be die, in France, in I order that B. and his sons may be enabled to stay at home in peace and comfort and to fatten on the other man's misfortune? Speaking of volunteering. I know a man, not 100 miles from Whangarei, who has seven sons in the First Division, not one of whom has enlisted. As a matter of fact not one of them has ever worn Khaki to this day. The voluntary system is dead. There is another gross injustice in the proposal to drop out of the war when the First Division is exhausted. I refer to our unmarried young women. They have had to give tip their sweethearts, and all the young women who have married since—was it May 1915? They, too, have had to make the sacrifice. Did I hear some one sneeringly remark that the single women would soon console themselves with some other man? 'Tis a blasphemous libel! Our single young women are as good and as pure and as constant as our married women are, and their hearts are just as easily broken as are those

of their married sisters, when the loved ones come not again. Damn it Sir, but it makes one's blood boil to listen to the cackling of these Little Englanders, at a time when our nation is straining every nerve to the breakingpoint in a fight for its existence! Wβ all know that: "When cold war's deadly blast has blown And Gentle Peace returning There'll be many a sweet babe fatherless, And many a widow mourning." Oh the pity of it! But there is no help for it if we are to survive as a nation. With an apology for the 'ongth of my letter, and my thanks in anticipation, for the space you may be pleased to accord, I am, etc., T. CAMERON. The Willows, Whangarei, 20th July, 1917.