A SWEEPING DENUNCIATION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11578, 23 December 1915, Page 5

A SWEEPING DENUNCIATION.

MAJOR-GENERAL M'CAY SPEAKS GUT. Major-General J. "W. 51' Cay delivered a sweeping denunciation of all shirkers in the Melbourne Town Hall a few nights ago, on the occasion of tho annual of prizes in connection with Scotch College. Leaning heavily on his stick, and speaking with passionate earnestness* General M'Cay declared that those who sought to make money at the expense of the soldiers at tlio present time, or who hindered tht> manufacture of munitions or clothes, or the transport of food to the troops would pay for it on tho Day of Judgment, and would be damned to all eternity. Tho men at the front, ho said, did not care'about Victoria Crosses. All they cared about was staying there, and doing their work until the war was over and Britain had won. (Cheers.) "When he remembered the things he had seen and tho cheerful courage of the men' he had seen doing those brave things, lie had very little patience with those who wero painted oil the other side of the shield.

" I know peoplo in this city of Melbourne," he said, " who look upon the war as an opportunity (for making money. You women who knit socks for soldiers all know that you have to pay a great deal mote for the wool than you did twelve months ago: It is not because the wool cannot be got, but because the noble draper wants to' make an extra profit. 1 know the men, and I want them to know that I have no use for them, and that they are not the people we are fighting for at Gallipoli. (Cheers.) Thank God most Australians are decent men and women, but there are some unspeakaWe skunks in this couurty that this country would lie better without. (Cheers.) Tho business gentlemen who make extra profit out of tho war and keep the soldiers without socks in the Gallipoli winter are gome of the people wo can do without. (Cheers.) PEOPLE "WE CAN DO' WITHOUT.

'' I will fell you some of the other people we can do without. So far as my official position will allow, I think it would be a good thing for me to speak out—and 1 think 1 am entitled to. (Cheers.) 1 read of gentlemen who object to being asked if they are willing to fight. So far as I am concerned I would jolly well make thern. (Cheers.) I clo not care what means are adopted to get men to go and light. All 1 know is that we must have life men. And tho people who try to stop us from getting the men are proGerman. (Cheers.) They may talk of this and that, and tlio other thing, but the fact remains that the old text is still true, 'Ho that is not with us is against us.' (Cheers.) We have got to win this war, or Australia" will bo tho first plum to fall into Germany's mouth. I wish to God that those people who say that we would be as well off under German rule as we are under British could have six months with Germans over them to find out. (Cheers.)

" Then there are men who get up out of a comfortable bed to a comfortable (breakfast tin thje morning, go into business, smoke their pipes at midday without any fear of having their heads blown off, go homo in the evening to a comfortable tea with clean plates—we haven't even those at Gallipoli—and, after an evening at the pictures or the play, go to'sleep in a comfortable bed between sheets, and who yet quairel as to whether they are to get another 6d per day or work with this man or that. ' Whether they are making woollen clothes to keep the soldiers from literally dying of cold, loading ships to keep the soldiers from dying of hunger, or making shells to keep them from being blown to pieces by the shells of the enemy, they say that, unless they get what they want, the soldiers can go to hell. 1 am in very deadly earnest about this matter, because I havo seen these men tight, and hunger, and die, and I believe that when the Day of Judgment comes—and I believe in"-a Day of judgment—the man who has fought and died at Gallipoli—j. do not care what lie was, whether he was the biggest scoundrel that ever walked Australia until ho redeemed himself by dying, or not—l say, when the Day of Judgment comes, that man will be all rights But, by the God above me that I believe in, the man who seeks money or selfish ea.se at this moment in this world will pay for it in the next. And the people who forget their obligations, and for whom we are fighting—although ive do not want to fight for them, because they are not worth the death of a fly, let alone that of a brave man—-may bo assured that they will receive eternal payment for their present attitude. (C-hfers.) In this thin? in the history , of the British Empire, when we are ' stopped on every front but one, and retreating on that, it is not a question of how Wo shall do this, or that, or what we shall receive for doing it. Itis a question of finding men to fight and die. And if men woir't go and fight- and die, and Australia gets lost jin consequence, then the men who won't go will lie damned to all eternity." (Cheers.) When Major-General M'Cay resumed