NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16121, 8 January 1916, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE HALF-MILLION CANADIANS

The Canadian Government has decided that Canada's contribution to the Imperial cause shall bo raised to half-a-million men. The Rev. Dr. Endon, known all over the British world as " Ralph Connor," is an army chaplain with the Canadians now at the. front. He .-peaks of his Canadians as enthusiastically as ho write?. Verymany of them, he says-, are well-educated ipen, owning and farming thousands of acres of land, and running large ranches ; university men, some of them controlling big businesses; the very finest men in the country, who have simply dropped everything in order to take a hand. One young fellow who owned a large ranch rode out and gathered 23 other men of his neighbourhood, all of them owning ranches as large as his, and the 24 of them came over. Our trouble is not to get men to come, but to select the men we want. i Men come down from the lumber camps, strong, seasoned men, capable of enduring any hardship, and the authorities choose a few of them when they crowd into the recruiting station, and the rest, who are rejected as ' unfit,' go back to their work, living normally under conditions which are certainly as hard as any they could encounter in the field. The standard of physical fitness is made absurdly high in Canada. It could be easily lowered without bringing in a single man who could He described with any justice as incapable of standing the severest rigours of a winter campaign over here. Life out there produces men who make absolutely the best kind of soldiers; men who possess initiative, who can ride and shoot, who know what responsibility means, and who are yet independent, thoroughly able to look after themselves. There is nothing in Canadian conditions to produce the differences between classes and the extremes of physical fitness and unfitness that exist at Home. The freedom and breadth of life in Canada have produced an extraordinarily capable and vigorous race,"

RUSSIAN SOCIALISTS' APPEAL. The great Russian advance which is said to have commenced has behind it * passionate unity of national purpose unprecedented in Russia. A remarkable appeal has been issued to workmen signed by many well-known leader.-, who say that : " We, the undersigned, belong to many sections of socialism, and ali though we differ in many particulars, we J all agree in this—A defeat for Russia by | Germany would mean our defeat in the < struggle for freedom. Let the whole country unite against the common danger. ■ We make our appeal to all men who live 'by the sweat of their brow. Our country is invaded, and the enemy threat-ens Kief, PetrogTad, and Moscow, and never j before have we had to fight so well-pre-pared and organised a foe. The situation I may become desperate, unless the working ' men of Russia will make a supreme effort. jlf Russia should be crushed her defeat i will result in intolerable suffering for. the I working man. After the Franco-Prussian | war of 1870 the indemnity was paid j mostly by the French working classes, I and the worst results of economic depresj sion reacted on them. A Russian defeat would mean far worse than this. A ] modern war carries with it unparalleled ' expenses, and Russia is economically less sound than her allies, not counting that ' her provinces are further impoverished Ibv invasion. Should Germany conquer ' she will claim an indemnity compared with which the sum Daid in 1870 would be a trifle. Not is this all It is no secret that German Imperialism intends to realise its dreams of colonisation at our expense. Should Germany win, Russia will become a German colony, and our peasants, turned out of their village*, will find no foothold anywhere. In the West, Germany's victory would mean the triumph of the old over the new, because England, France, and Italy are far ahead of her in political development. Germany alone has no representative government. If we cherish our democratic ideals, we must fight for them, and our allies. Indifference means national suicide."