WAKE UP NEW ZEALAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 143, 17 May 1940, Page 4

WAKE UP NEW ZEALAND.

(To tho Editor.) Sir, —Watching on Saturday afternoons the stream of young men wending their way to watch (no, not to play) the various football matches, one could not help being struck by their carefree appearance. The fact that the Empire is engaged in a life and death struggle with a foul and brutal thing means nothing to them. Some of these sweet and lovely creatures had their liair crimped and waved and carried combs with which to keep their woman-like headpiece in a presentable condition. Oh, you effeminate “sissies,” do you not realise that if the Empire goes down we New Zealanders go down into a something worse than slavery, and then the days of your “sissydom” will be over. Instead of the, 44-liour week which you now enjoy, you will be put into labour camps,and "forced to perform all kinds, of uncongenial tasks undet a beast armed with a gun and a whip, lie Britons lads! Join up for military service and do a man’s work in defending the Empire, instead of leaving it to the middle-aged and married men with families. Is it nothing to you that a large percentage of the men who have gone overseas are well over the age of 30 years and some of them have left a wife and family to be maintained by the State while you remain at home? The present is not a capitalists’ war;. it is a grim struggle against all that it is devilish and filthy. If you don’t believe this then read tho daily papers and try to understand what they say. .

And you, “conshies” and pacifists, who take refuge behind religious scruples, you are like the man who, wanting to burn his house in order to -collect the insurance, looked up the Bible and, .finding nothing specific therein, carried out the job. Similarly, you twist some passage of Scripture to suit your shortcomings. Do not fear; nobody expects you to bear arms. Your proper and natural place is in the sanitary squad, _ where the only weapon used is a syringe. Search the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation and you won’t find anything to say that it is wrong to observe cleanliness in the army. Thank heaven, all is not lost. We still have the lads of the Old Brigade to fall back oil. True, some of them are spending their declining years by the fireside, but they are still readv and willing to get hack into the firing line fortified by the knowledge that they have the best wishes and prayers of the young folk at home. In 19-50 the question will be, “What did you do in the last war. daddy; where are your medals?”—l am, etc., . „ • VETERAN.