BLUNT PETER BOWLING.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14864, 11 September 1918, Page 2

BLUNT PETER BOWLING.

WHAT HE SAW IN QUEENSLAND.

"IT MADE MY BLOOD BOIL."

Speaking at Martin place, Sydney on August Mr. Peter Bowling? 'the Labour leader, said that he had return! £ uld > rhere he had seen things-he VVafes. WOUW neVei" See in ew So«?

ihe people appeared to think that everyone who stood on a recruiting platform was a traitor to Labour, but bert-syuare Brisbane, in 1915, and went on to say that in-that country where they had put Mr. Fisher at the head of the poll, h e (the speaker) was accused of deserting the Labour cause. "(A voice: Never.) The man who would not mount the to stand by the boys at the front was a traitor to the Labour pledge It made his blood run cold to see the sneers at the returned soldiers in Queensland, even at the wounded men A voice: And here, too. Mr Bowling : Yes, I believe it is here too. '

He said he saw the members of the JNationahsts' Party prominent on every •recruiting platform, but he had to use a magnifying glass to spy out the Labour supporters. "If England had .not gone into the war when she did," lie asked, "where would the people of Australia be now ? 1 was against every war waged by Eno--land during the past 50 years :* but If she had noVhurled that little army in then I would be ashamed to say I was a Britisher. 7 '

Mr. Bowling then denounced the men who would not enlist themselves and prevented others from enlisting He warned them that if they would not help for other reasons, they should do so to save their own skins. Germany did not want England and she did net want France, except that portion of it where the coal was. What she wanted was Australia, to popujate it with Germans, and to make it a German nation. She also wanted India, the brightest jewel in the British Crown.

Australia owed much to the protection of the British flag, and it was sad ingratitude that anyone should at the present time dare to raise any other here.

There were men at the other extreme of _ the recruiting platform who were rising the war for their own purposes. Fc meant certain employers of labour. that should not prevent .others f-'-om doing their duty. These men should be marked down and dealt with nt the t>rnper time.

Mr.-Bowling.ended his ptixring appeal for recruits by-saying: "Voices are constantly calling from the trenches. Are ynn soing to respond, and if not, why not?"