SYMPATHY.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2476, 1 June 1915, Page 9

SYMPATHY.

Sir, —A public discussion is always amusing, if only as a study of various individual opinions. Like all fashionable crazes, one feels hound to be drawn in, especially when a certain point of view riles one's blood or jars on one's sense of the fitting. May I therefore criticise the remarks of 11. Allen in The Dominion of May 28 ? He, as a man, may of course depreciate his own sex, but I as a woman firmly believe that in this time of stress and need the male population of New Zealand are proving themselves to be men, and men worthy of the name. A man is always oblivious of public opinion; he wiTl always do as he thinks right and just; the madding crowd can neither always know, nor would they perhaps understand if they did know, his motives. No mail would advertise his virtues, therefore 110 mail would consent to wear a badge lest people think liim a coward. If lie is a coward God and his conscience will suffice to humiliate him ; if he is brave, then no amount of public approbation will increase his courage. I admire "Unfit," who is a man, and to whom the idea of parading his manliness is revolting, and I appreciate his indignation and his bold expression thereof. H. Allen's composition jars when he refers to the best life has to offer us as his "sweetheart's petoicoats." It is as tTiougli lie had taken God's name in vain. No woman would prevent lier lover from jjoing to the front if he thought it his duty to leave her.

"Shirkers" and "poltroons" are hard wcrds, Mr. Dardanelles, and you may never perhaps know the souls you hurt as you wrote them. Who are you to judge your fellow men? May we not leave that to God? May there not be many for whom ; t is much harder to stay than to go? How are we, mere casual observers, to lrnow another's soul, his private affairs, and his own insistent duties, hard duties perhaps and more difficulty to fulfil than the obvious duty of serving one's country and going off with public praise and' approval? Is not that man courageous who fulfils a duty of this kind by staying in the face of all the scorn and criticism which is Dow being meted out to him? May we not trust our men and leave it to their honour to do their duty to their country, their relations, and to themselves, wherein each will find his own salvation; God will know. I should bo sorry to see compulsory service, for to me then the "field of honour" would have'lost its beauty. A regiment of willing women, strong, fit, and perfectly capable of shooting either Turks or Germans, would be of more value than weak men. One word to "A Soldier's Sister." Let her use her womanly persuasion towards the "young man" of her acquaintance, "whose income apart from wages is £10 a week," without further exposing his weaknesses, and let her wheedle him into doing with this superfluous ca3h just whatever she thinks fit, but please, please never lot her suggest for one mcnient that among her sex there is such a cat as would say to n man offering her a dance, "Why don't you go to the front?" If there is such a girl in New Zealand may she rick her ankle as she floats down the stairs into the ballroom. She belongs to that despicable army of white feather and anonymous letter-senders, and I have no vocabulary strong enough to express my utter 6corn and contempt of these. Finally, may I suggest that these discussions cease. They are each bound to hurt someone, and is thero not enough poignant pain and suffering at this time without the additional agony caused by slander and inisunderstandius:? —I am, etc., A WOMAN. ["A Woman" who finds the public discussion of a matter involving honour and duty to one's country "amusing," and who regards such discussion as nothing better than a "fashionable craze," is surely out of keeping with the spirit of the times. Fler sisters, we suspect, will have less regard for the hurt feelings of the shirker ' than she apparently would wish them to have.]

The "War Prisoners' Gazette," a journal printed in French, is now being circulated in the internment camps in Germany. The sheet is filled with stories of the hatred of the English for the Irish, of their contempt of the French, and of equally imaginary mutinies among the Allied troops.