"GROUSING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 289, 2 September 1919, Page 6

"GROUSING

DIGGERS, AREN'T YOU OVERDOING IT? Sir,—l notice that complaints are being sometimes made by very loud-voiced soldiers about their treatment since coming back here, and about the provision that is being mude for them. No doubt in some case there is unfair work going * on—employers are not in all cases carryiUß out their early intentions towards their men, though 1 know many who aro —and possibjy in special instances where things have gone wrong in regard to land occupation and housing, returned men have reason for oomplaint. But tak. ing things all -round, I do not think there is any justification for '.he bitter statements that you hear and read from time to time.

I admit there is a good deal yet fof the Government to do in helping on soldier settlement, stopping profiteering, encouraging or compelling house building and so forth, but it takes time to do this, and because it is not yet done in no excuse for Bolshevik passions to seize hold of men and lead them to utter rash statements, such as we sometimes hear. And I would like io point out that the most immodernto things are often said and written by men who were not of the old Main Boay or the earlier reinforcements, but those who still retain bitter resentment against the Government for bavin# compelled them to do their duty. It is not nice to have to say it, but I have - noticed this is so at some of the returned soldiers* meet_lt was so in mo6t of the camp agitations, and on board the transodrts, and in one particular instance in France. The publio who read immoderate statements in the papers emanating from soldiers must not think that all returned men subscribe to thorn. War experience teaches philosophy to most men who think, and the majority of soldiers, those who have got solidly down to graft again, view little things that annoy them back here (and I admit there are some) in a philosophic spirit. It is absurd to blame "Bill Massey" for everything that has gone wrong or does not quite come up to expectation, and just as foolish 'to think that the blazing-eyed orator, or anyone else, can put "things right all at once. Taking matters all round, the later reinforcement men have had a pretty good spin from this country, and if there are any complaints to be made they could only come from tie earlier drafts. I think it is time that this aspect 6liould be emphasised. It is the iminoderates, some of them trained at agitating and speechmaking, who are going to split up soldier comradeship, kill liaclc here the old spirit of the trenches, because the decent ones, the moderatethinking, fair-minded majority will not link arms with this 6ort of thing. It is already threatening the membership of eomo of the returned, soldiers' associations. If we returned soldiers have grievances or see others suffering them, let us approach the matter with a fair mind) preserve our equilibrium, and remember that we are Britishers first and foremost. It is only by keeping this spirit amongst us, especially now that the election is coming on and certain political exponents .will bo lashing themselves into righteous fury over our wrongs, hoping to catoh our votes on that issue alone—that we can hope to hang together. Any fancied grievance will be a sufficient peg for some of them to hang a condemnation of the Government upon. 1 am not touting for the Government, hut a little retrospective thought does not do anyone any lmrm; and I object to the anathema which I have heard indulged in latoly beimr accepted as tho views of returned soldiers generally, when'it comes so largely from the section I have referred to.—l am, etc., FLEES.