THE CALLING UP OF BOYS.

Southland Times, Issue 17735, 13 August 1917, Page 2

THE CALLING UP OF BOYS.

To the Editor. Sir,—l am no letter writer but if you will allow me just a little space in your valuable paper I would ask the men of the Second Division League to at once enter their emphatic protest against poor striplings, fresh from school, taking their place in the firing line. My husband is in the Second Division. He has scarcely ever had a day’s illness and has been in hard training all his life. Therefore he expects to pass the medical test easily. He will also have to leave a business behind, but he says no half-grown boy is going to take his place. He would just as soon think of hiding behind his mother or sisters. Some may say that boys of 18 and 19 are fighting at Home. Well so are the married men, and besides those boys are fighting almost in their own country and climate and home, while our poor laddies would have to travel twelve thousand miles from home. Of one thing I am certain, if there are any men, “creatures” I should say, in the Second Division who are willing to hide behind those boys, we women are not, and there are thousands of us who will offer to get into khaki and do what some of the women of Russia are doing.—l am, etc., SECOND DIVISION MAN’S WIFE. Otaufrau, August 11.

To the Editor. Sir, —I, a mother of soldiers over twenty years of age and with no sons under that age, therefore having no personal axe to grind, do hereby enter my protest against the sacrifice of boys of nineteen years of age in the interest of married men, more especially of those men who have no children or not more than two. The thanks of all mothers are due to “Argus” for his able and, it is to be hoped, timely letter on this subject in your issue of to-day. Think of the injustice to that section of the community who have given their older sons, two, three, and in some cases five, with only one or two left. Must they also be taken and the Second Division be left? What about equality of sacrifice? Great things are expected from the men and women of the future, who are the boys and girls of to-day, therefore it behoves the Second Division and their wives to place no stumbling block in the way of their children, by accepting safety and a seeming honour won by the sacrifice of boys, instead of by the men who are their proper protectors. I appeal to all Second Division wives and mothers to so act, that their children may be able to look back from their manhood and womanhood to parents who counted no sacrifice too great for the cause for which New Zealand’s sons are fighting and suffering.—-I am, etc., A MOTHER.