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Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 44, 10 July 1915, Page 11

"Browning," in N.Z. "Times":— My name is Browning. My father* J. M. Browning, was an American by birth, British by extraction, Belgian by adoption. I myself was bom in tlie factory Fabrique Nationiale at Liege, Belgium. I am only nine inches 'long, yet, properly handled, I can destroy seven enemies of my country and yours, and of (mankind in as many seconds. Tn my native land of Belgium, I have seen fearful and incredible things that have nearly broken my steel heart. I am only of 9mm. calibre, yet I have fought against the monster 42 cm. guns of Germany. I have seen hundreds of defenceless men, women, and children murdered by brutal German soldiers to the orders of cultured German gentlemen, who a few days before had been Uni-

versity professors, teachers, even preacher®, in my land and yours. I •have seen, placed against a wall and shot as convicted! spies, cultured German Gentlemen, lawyers, architects, priests, .whosie mothc/.s, and sometimes wives, were Belgian women. Their clothes were padded with plans of Belgian fortresses and railway stations. Their cellars were German arsendls, their house-foun-dations the platforms from which the giant 42 cm. guns of the Germane battered the forts of my native town to pieces. I have seen soldiers of my nation and yours, wounded and: dead, stabbed again by these devils, the dead to make sure, the wounded to make doubly sure! I have Keen I Strangest of all I have seen in New Zealand one of these 6ame cultured German gentlemen, a University professor, paid by the Government of your country, a large salary which a Briton should be earning. I have heard a Briton say, "I shall enlist if I don't get work to-mor-row!" I have seen tJhis same cultured German gentleman, against whom, and for whom I know nothing, championed by men who hesitated not to turn your land into an armed camp, and even to call in the British Navy to suppress a strike of workmen, yet shrink from discharging a possible spy, who is possibly a cultured German gentleman, and certainly a man of a bloody and' evil nation. I have heard these champions o,f an unnaturalised German professor in a British University, shout through the length of the land for more men to GO to fight the brutal Germans; but I never heard one of them say "COME!" _ And tlie cordite swells in my sev-en-chambered heart; my safety is down ; and I long for the grip of a friendly hand.