A NEW ZEALAND CONTINGENT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 73, 27 February 1885, Page 2

A NEW ZEALAND CONTINGENT.

The Auckland Star strongly objects to New Zealand sending a contingent to Soudan. It says: — Wo earnestly trust that the cool-headedneas which has hitherto distinguished them m the midst of prevailing setitimen&il mania will not desert the Cabinet now. New Zealand has had its own wars, andhas fought them put alone. There can be no charge r of . pusillanimity levelled against this colony. To NewSouth Wales and Victoria wasr votes are a novelty, and possess, perhaps, all the attractions of a new sensation. But even with them the romance will "be short lived. Has it come to this, that the colonies have nothing* better for the stoutest, strongest young men to do than to ship them off to be food for Arab powder ? Is work so scarce, is population so dense, , is there no agricultural land to reclaim, that tho hope of the future must be killed off by wqunds and disease.? And ail for what? For a hollow sentiment, a mere enthusiastic whim, which will inevitably cool long beforo the deserts of the Soudan come into view. The Australian colonists, usually so longheaded, are indulging m a bout of . temporary insanity, , out of whigh they will be effectually . routed when the Bill' of costs is presented. And the most, lamentable item qn this bill will bo the list of dead" and wounded, the victims of a Soudan summer, as well as of bullet and " bayonet thrusts. Surely the flower of our Australian youth, .was meant for some higher and - noWer purpose than to acquire *a few square, feet of soil m the Mahdi's country. to die m a cause not their own.