COMRADE OR DIGGER?

Otago Witness, Issue 3833, 30 August 1927, Page 75

COMRADE OR DIGGER?

RETT'RNEI > SOLI HERS. SYDNEY. August IS. The public was amused by the debate at the Congress of the Returned Soldiers’ League in Sydney the other day when they heatedly discussed what they should call each other. Some of the war-time terms of endearment, of course, were eschewed. The question was whether they should call each other comrade in conference, in the street, and in correspondence. “No, no: that would not do,” said one delegate plaintively. “We have already lost one colonel who was called comrade by a man who pushes a fishbarrow in the street.” Digger, cobber, or comrade; what was it to be? The discussion went on and on, getting a little more heated as it proceeded, and they might have been some real bitterness had not one delegate pointed out that to lay down such a rule might mean a curtailment of “the liberty of the subject.” Any man should be allowed to call his fellow what he chose, they finally agreed. Certainly to be forced to call other members “comrade” would not entirely please some of our blunt returned men, whose bluff heartiness oftimes relieved the tragedy of other days.