CALL TO MANHOOD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16965, 29 March 1917, Page 6

CALL TO MANHOOD

SHACKLETON'S LAST MESSAGE. On tho ove of his departure from Austrab'a for England to join the colours, Sir Ernest Shacldeton left this message to Australia :— " When I came out from the south, after long days of struggle and strife in stark Polar solitudes, 1 had my first impression of tho war at Punta Arenas. A little British community lives there under a foreign flag, and 40 per cent, of its men had gono to tho front, not because they had to go, or even because they had boon asked to go, but because they knew their country had need of them. " Hero in Australia tho call to service sounds loud and clear. " I speak to you men as one who has carried tho King's flag in the white warfare of tho Antarctic, and who is going now to serve in the red warfa.ro of Europe. I say to you that this call moans more than duty, more lhan sacrifice, more than glory; it is the supreme opportunity offered every man of our race to justify himself before his own soul.

" Love of ease, love of money, love of woman, love of life—all these are small things in the scale against your own manhood.

" Tho blood that has been shec! on tho burning hills of Gallipoli and tho sodden Holds of Flandei - & calls to you. " Politics, prejudices, petty personal interests are nothing. Fight because you havo the hearts of men, and because, if you fail, you will know yourselves in your own inner conscience to bo for ever shamed.

"And to the women "of Australia I would say iusfc this—be as the women of Sparta, who said to husbands, brothers, and fathers: 'Co wo back victorious or on your shields!' "