THE SECOND DIVISION

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9788, 11 October 1917, Page 5

THE SECOND DIVISION

A BISHOP’S WARNING TO THE STATE. In his sermon at a special service in connection with the day of national prayer, held at the Christchurch Roman Catholic Cathedral, Bishop Brodie, after reviewing the progress of tho war, said; “Coming to our own Dominion, our legislators are grappling with questions of great importance. For example, there is the question of pensions for the men of .the Second Division. But did they ever give thought to the magnitude of tho Second Division question itself? Whether they are justified in insisting on this universal divorce? Whether the infinitesimally small help the Second Division men can give the Empire will compensate for the irreparable harm tie loss of those men will cause to tie moral and social life of this Dominion? And whether the Empire, in her desire to avenge injustice, would require her youngest Dominion to deplete her strength by such a sacrifice which would reduce her mothers to tho state of widowhood and would render her children fatherless? The questions of pensions may be important, but the main question is one of transcending magnitude. In such a matter (fur statesmen are face to face with a problem which must bo approached with t|a strictest conscientiousness and with a desire to do tho best for the welfare of the Empire and our Dominion.”