THE Kaipara Advertiser. AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23 1912. OUR VETERANS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 23 October 1912, Page 2

THE Kaipara Advertiser. AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23 1912. OUR VETERANS.

; ONCE move the case of the veter- | ans who fought the battles in the open in the pioneer days is before Parliament. This time there is the welcome difference that the petition of the poor fellow for justice and consideration is about to be granted. But the main thing arising out of these repeated attempts to get the said justice and consideration, is a feeling of profound discouragement for the ardent young who are beginning their career in the compulsorymilitary service of the Dominion. If service after war involves n© better reward than hope deferred, neglect and contempt, • — things plentiful at the service of the veteran of the .New Zealand wars — how long will the duty of patriot-

ism be recognised ? We want to take a leaf out of the American book. The American pension list of hundreds of thousands of men and millions of dollars a year, is a grand monument of the practical patriotism of the American nation. So also are the great military graveyards of the Union, where all the dead that could be collected have been brought in off the great battle fields and laid in chosen spots where the hand of tender care and reverent piety never ceases to keep the earth beautiful. Here we scoff at the pension list as a thing quite impossible and therefore of fraudulent grouth. But the war lasted 1862 to 1865 and the men engaged averaged between eighteen and twenty-two years. The survivors today may be very many at the ages of 65 to 68 years and over. Prima facie therefore, the numbers of the pension list are rather in favour of genuineness. For the cemeteries, think of their beauty, and think of some cemeteries where the British soldier, with companions of the navy, lies beside the volunteer and the militiaman, the forest ranger and the constabulary man of the colonial pioneer days. Here is a chapter of our history which ought to be taken in hand at once and in the deadest earnest.