SHOW UP THE SHIRKERS.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2471, 26 May 1915, Page 9

SHOW UP THE SHIRKERS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Is it not high time that something should be done to distinguish those men who have volunteered for the front and have been finally rejected from those who have not even attempted to serve their country in the hour of lior greatest need? I have sons who from the first tried to go to the front —men who were trained under the old volunteer system, and now through physical defects that cannot be ameliorated, they have been refused. To the unobserving eye they seem fit aud sound, ana because of this they are subjected to a daily treatment from others that amounts to what in these perilous times is nothing less than a deadly insult to their escutcheon and to the bygone generations of soldiers whose warlike blood still flows in their veins. They not only feel it keenly, as all who are physically unfit must do. It is their just due, since in this country there is no conscription in the real sense of the word to distinguish rejects, that the Government should set its authentio badge on those who cannot go. Sir, this is merely a personal view of the matter. But I want to bring the other sido under your notice because if physical rejects, and these to whom the Government absolutely needs to stay behind, were ' given means whereby they could b& distinguished would it not draw a sharp line of necessary demacation between those who have tried to serve their country in the - field of battle and those who are the shirkers and have not even attempted to enlist, let alono undergo medical examination. Sir, would not such a system bo a very considerable aid to recruiting by bringing into the limelight those who now lie low and dodge the issue, and pass into the shadows and dark places for fear they will he called upon to help, and bring to a definite and victorious conclusion the great issues now at stake. —I am, etc., MOTHER.