AN APPEAL FOR FAIR PLAY.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2789, 6 June 1916, Page 6

AN APPEAL FOR FAIR PLAY.

Sir,—Conscription is coming, and to end this disastrous war the sooner it comes the better. Single and married men must go forth to protect tho Empire, and during the absence of the husbands every right-thinking and able woman should take up lier husband's business or 6ome other occupation to keep tho country going, and to keep her husband's businoss or perhaps his partly, paid-for homestead out of the Tiands of the mortgagee, so that when he returns in sickness or in-health he will not have to be a burden on the already overburdened State, but will have at least his home to return to. We read in the Compulsion Bill that it is proposed there shonld be two divisions—First Division consisting of (a) unmarried men, (b) married men who married' subsequently to August, 1914, (c) widowers without children, and (d) men separated and without oliildren. The Second Division is to consist of all other reservists.

I wish to refer specially to B class in the First Division, and to make a special appeal on behalf of those who became wives during the first twelve months of the war. Everyone knows that it is usual for those about to marry to make their contracts or engagements at least twelve months in advance, so these women took unto them their clicsei. husbands, and tho husbands many of them beforo marrying signed deeds binding them to business and to homesteads, especially as many of them were beyond the then age for accepting as recruits, viz., 35. Now many of these wives are tho mothers' of one and some of two infante, in fact they are tho youngest mothers of tho Dominion, unable to leave their offspring. Is it not an injustice, that their husbands should bo classed with the shirkers who, after the war-had been in full swing for a year and had proved that single men were needed, rushed to the altar with no previous engagement or contract to marry. On behalf of the youngest mothers, of the Dominion, I ask: Would it not be more just if their husbands (whoso marriages took ulace before August 1, 1015, instead of 19U) were classed with all tho other reservists of tho Second Division. Then by tho time they are' required to fight for their country their infants would be at least out of arms, and the mothers would be able to keep business and home together till the warriors' return. Of course, there is the Appeal Board, but to bo classed now with shirkers might tend to mako a man refuse to appeal.—l am, etc., * THE DOMINION'S YOUNGEST. MOTHERS.