CONSCRIPTION CAMPAIGN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1760, 4 December 1917, Page 3

CONSCRIPTION CAMPAIGN.

NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM REFEREED TO. '

“A PURE FABRICATION.”

Sydney, Dec. 2

Mr Hughes, speaking at Tamworth, stated that he had sent a cable message to Mr Massey, Prime Minister of /New Zealand, asking if there was any truth in the statement published in an Ipswich (Queensland) paper that the New Zealand Government’s pledges that sufficient labour would be exempted to carry on necessary industries in the country had been broken, and that farmers’ sons had been torn from their beds in the dead of night, Mr Massey had replied that every pledge made was being loyally kept. The statement regarding farmers’ sons, said Mr Hughes, was a vile and infamous liCi The system in New Zealand, he was informed by Mr Massey, was working smoothly.

MR. MASSEY’S CABLE MESSAGE.

The Prime Minister (Right Hon. Mr Massey) stated to a Post representative yesterday that the cable message he sent to Mr Hughes, in reply to his cabled enquiry, was as follows :

“Reply to your telegram of 27th. Firstly: Every pledge made by National Government regarding administration Military Service Act, providing for compulsory military service, has been kept to the letter’. Secondly: General satisfaction is expressed with the working of the Act, although there is comparatively small minority who have been opposed to it from the first, and who are still Opposed. Thirdly: Statement about fanners’ sons being dragged out of bed at dead of night by armed men pure fabrication.”