BRITISH SOIL FOR BRITISH SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 294, 31 August 1918, Page 8

BRITISH SOIL FOR BRITISH SOLDIERS

The question of settling tlio British soldier on British soil is one to be decided by two parties (states the "Daily Mail"). There is the nation, which fully recognises its debt of gratitude to the men~who have savcu it, and there is the soldier himself. The nation will make any sacrifice to do what the soldier asks. What does the soldier want? The most important evidence on that point is to be found in a remarkable book published some moliths ago by "An Amateur Officer," under the title of "After Victory" (Melrose). Its author, who fought on the Somme, says: There is some project on foot for settling our discharged soldiers in the Dominions alter die war. Ido not say that we should not offer every lacility in our power to the men who are determined to' emigrate. Ido not say that we should attempt to keep them at homo by coercion, or place any barriers in the way of individual freedom in the matter of emigration. . ' But I do say that we, shall bo 'guilty of insane stupidity as well as wanton ingratitude if wc lend our hand or our voice to any wholesale exportation to the Dominions or hold out inducements to our men to emigrate These men have fought for their homes. Their home is here. We need them at home. We need their work; we need their influence; we need their children yet to he horn. They are as the salt of the earth. They will be as the leaven of all that is great and noble among us. We need the type of men who fought perpetuated. They are the type of the old-time Christian gentleman that was identified with British blood and was thought to be extinct in our ago. We need what will he left of them to help us maintain our new ideal of civic and national duty. We need them to rally round the standard of peace in earth that they have borne for us through the surge of blood and death.

The war has removed many of the old objections to a resettlement of the land by men from the cities. It lias shown that even tlio "lads from nowhere," with bad associations and bad antecedents have in them extraordinarily lioblo elements. Thousands uf them, as the Bishop -of Stepney has reminded us, have "stood firm and fearless in the iron wall of resis'.iii re to which is ilip.i our safety, our very life." They could mahc u fresh start on the land.