A NATIONAL DRY ROT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 158, 23 March 1918, Page 8

A NATIONAL DRY ROT

THE PSEUDO-CONSCIENTIOUS- OBJECTOR. ■ Following is an extract from "Wounded and a Prisoner of War/' by an exchanged officer: —"Here in England, far from the presence of war, it is impossible to realise the suffering of the unfortunate people in the North of France, who have never been allowed to get news from the trenches, who will not know of the death of husband or son for months and years after. No correspondence is allowed even with neutral countries. Though the land under German occupation is a place cf misery and desolation, it lias one redeeming feature—there are no pseudoconscientious objectors. German invasion and occupation of Britain would not be too high a price to pay for the extirpation of this rational dry-rot." The writer then speaks of the hardships endured by those living in the invaded districts, and continues thus: "I do not envy the man, be he ploughman, starred tradesman, or merely possessed of a sickly conscience, who can apply for leave to stay at home, whilo old men and' little children till tho fields of Northern France without horses, oxen, or ploughs, under the hard rule of the J'un."