SOLDIERS AS "COMRADES."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19718, 18 August 1927, Page 16

SOLDIERS AS " COMRADES."

OBJECTIONS TO TERM. REJECTED BY A CONGRESS. A congress of returned soldiers in New South Wales lately was sharply divided by a motion from the Katoomba subbranch that at all meetings and in all minutes and correspondence members should be designated "comrade" irrespective of the rank they held in the army. The Katoomba delegate said that there was no finer word in the language, and since they were all equal in this democratic country, a common mode of address would make their intercourse easier. A delegate from a metropolitan branch, however, deplored the practice on the ground that it had brought disaster upon his own organisation. They had two colonels among their members, and each resigned under the stress of being addressed as comrade. One of these gentlemen had never been mollified. Several doctors were annoyed because a man who sold fish at the street corners had spoken to them in this way. Voices: Well, isn't he as good as they are ? The Delegate: I don't think so. (Murmurs of derision.) The debate was one of the most spirited the agenda paper has inspired, arid many delegates spoke. There were two schools of opinion : One supported the suggestion on principles of democracy; the other opposed it on the ground that the word 'comrade" was debased by its association .with' the Soviet. An attempt to cornpromise on the words "digger" or "cobber" failed. Mr. A. Moody 'Gilgandra) insisted passionately that this was a move to curtail the liberty of the subject, a remark which raised a storm of delight, and when Mr. Sorrell (of Corrowa) ridiculed any endeavour to make thousands of men call each other any name at all the motion was defeated unanimously.. *