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Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2874, 12 September 1916, Page 6

It was at a Melbourne suburban meeting at which conscription and cognate matters wore being discussed, reports an exchange. There was somo opposition from a. section of the audience, imbued with tho quaint idea that men wero being called to defend Australia from the chance of a German conquest, with the real intention of delivering the workers bound hand and foot irito the keeping of rapacious band of capitalists. One thin, waspish woman of fifty, with spectacles and a raspy voice, was particularly vehement. "No conscription!" sho cried. "No conscription!" Sho was standing in tho hall, brandishing an umbrella. "Even, if pou pass the law no son of mine will go. I would strangle them in their beds first." "But, madame," a man on the platform expostulated, "perhaps your sons are men enough to want to goto light for their country." "What?" ejaculated tho woman; "a son of mine- go without my consent? Never, sir, never! Don't you count on that." "If other sons go, yours will have to go," insisted the male speaker. "Oh, indeed?" was the fierce retort. "I'd like to sop them do it. I'd like to see you or any other man make a boy of mine go." Tho man was about to reply further when a disgusted voice from the fifth row cried, "All, go on guyner! I wouldn't, worry over tho.point, soein' tho party ain't got no sons. She's an old maid." Even then the woman was not silenced. "What of it?" she almost screamed. "What of it, I say, Do you think I'm going to sit hero liko a dummy whilo you wrotches dispose of tho lives of tho sons I might have had?"