KOMATE, KOMATE !

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 789, 13 August 1915, Page 6

KOMATE, KOMATE !

The Maori versus The Turk,

fT is good to read of General' Godley's genuine pleasure at hearing •he was to have a reinforcement -of Maoris. The General Knows a little about Maori history, and is aware that, if blood and breeding—if hereditym fact, counts for anything "ja the quality of a .soldier, the present-day Maori will surely prove himself just as much a 'fust class fLghtdn 1 man" as was the famous Fuzzy Wuzzy who gave JLommy all his work to do to lick hi™ in the Soudan. The Maoris ' are evidently now at the Dardanelles, for ak ready we read in the cables of the astonishment and terror of the Turks as fchey listened to the "Komate, Komaf?T t son S of the men from the Land of the Long White Cloud," ana watched, no doubt, their weir-d war dance through the' Zeuss prismatics of the German officers. The Maori . contingent are only a mere handful', but when once they "get busy ," .we may rest assured they will give a rattling good account of. themselves, especially if they have the chance to get to a hand-to-hand grip with the enemy. All good luck to ilenare and Tamati and Wiremu and the rest of them. May we soon hear of their having been in action, and' proved themselves, as all. their whilte fellowcountrymen are convinced they will worthy soldiers of the King and gallant sons of the Empire.