WHEN WILL YOU JOIN?

Waikato Times, Volume 84, Issue 13067, 7 January 1915, Page 6

WHEN WILL YOU JOIN?

ROUNDING-UP HOME-STAYING YOUTHS. ONE ENGLIShToUNTRYSIUEJ SKETCH.

From the first days of the week the | •ir of our countryside has been charged by rumours of Compulsory ServiceConscription. The words are not palatable to countryfolk; harsh meanings are attached to them. But 1 am convinced that in the country, given conscription, it will be a case ofjnaking a wry face, th»n swallowing the pill for the good that lies therein. A feeling Kro»a steadily in the country that Ihings-thc war and our progress, rtcruitinß. the help that is being uiyen things in general are not moving quickly enough. In rural places, in the first Hush of pride at the splendid way the young men stepped forth for King and country.fifty and a hundred men from many a rural parish—we were inclined to say, 'We have done very fairly well. So-and-So has not gone, it is true, nor haa So-and-So. Nevertheless, we have vent forth some fine fellows; we have done our share." We put up in prominent places our "Records of Honour." We grew accustomed to the idea that So-and-So did not volunteer, and left it to him to salve as he might hit) own conscience. We lout the |recrjiting fervour. Now, 1 think, Blowly, in many and many a rural place the conviction gains ground Something must be done. What we considered our fair snare in September is seen to bo utterly inadequate, now November is come and the enemy is in Belgium still. The recruiting Hie must be blown up.

And the help we are giving is not tnoußh, is too spasmodic, lacks coordination and direction. A poor woman in our village, who has nine children at home in a four-roomed cottage, made seven shirts for the Army this week in two days. Her neißhbour has not yot completed her first pair of socks for the Army. We begin to understand that while it is good to send the man at the front a pair of socks be needs another pair within a fortnight We all know that Lord Kitchener hus not yet raised his million men.

HEARTS OF UAK

K\ery moment for recruiting let pass adds to the difficulty and delicacy of the task among our independent, stubborn-minded, hearta-of-oak countrymen. Every passing moment allows those who stay behind, yet might go. to deaden their consciences. There are many eligible men for the army who are not shirkers, not unpatriotic, not cowards, certainly; but have not gone to the war simply because, they have not been made to see. and cannot see for themselves, that King and country netd them. They have been tokl so but do not understand. Little molehill dilliculties about leaving home, neglecting bu*iin'..>. putting tne farnur in a fix, and so on nre magnified into mountains. One reason is thut in the country we have no conception of the number of the organisations which exist to wipe away these dilliculties. The natural tear that the wife and children will utiifve when the breadwinner goes is not laid low yet. Nor is the bogey, that the phrase "war relief ' means charity.

Difficult, indiel. is the recruiter's task in the country. Many a likely young man for the wars has not gone '..vitu,,< of some unreaHonublti idea which, somehow, is fixed in hIJ head, ijueer stories could be told on this head-as that of a fine young man in our parts, remarkably handsome, the pattern of a soldier—the son of a prosperous employer of labour -who is kept at home by an overweening ambition. "1 would go," he has declared many times, "if 1 could be a lieutenant in an airahip." He would be an ornament to any airship, no doubt of it.

How eaßily offence id given is shown by a atory of a lady of highest standing in our countryside, and of greatest influence, one would suppose, who on Sunday, requested some likely young men, regular churchgoers, to stay a moment after the morning service, under the churchyard's thousand-year-old yew tree, for a recruiting talk. This was in the opening days of the war; the only result has been that not one of them has ever been seen in u church since. EMPLOYERS AND MEN.

A number of men have not gone to the war because the way has not been made easy for then by employers. The favourite footman, the genius of a gardener, tie indispensable gamekeeper, the perfect chauffeur, the peerless groom who alone can understand the horses—how many of such right-hand men stay at borne because not urged forth? And some Btay because they have never left home. One can hardly imagine what tbe wrench of parting must be to auch a man as one in our village who for 27 years of hia life never slept elsewhere but under the roof of bis mother, who depends utterly on his work for her support. Mothers often are a reaaon for staying at home; as the village policeman found when he went recruiting. Time again and again he would go after a likely lud, to be repulsed by a mother, whose main argument would be the queation, "Why not go yourself " t \ Ki>hcrt£luire << all patiently. So the feeling grows in tbe country that the insinuating queation, written up in the post office, "When will you join?" must be changed to a command peremptory. Those with a finger on the countryman's pulse are certain of thie-that thousands in the countsy will be glad in their hearts when corn pulsion is the order of the day, and will go'out jfitb aa fine a spirit aa did thotejwho gone _ before. | * M ***~P' ***3 -.*._