COMPULSORY SERVICE

Nelson Evening Mail, 20 September 1916, Page 5

COMPULSORY SERVICE

! HOW IT IS VIEWED BY MEN AT I THE FRONT. AUCKLAND, Sept. 16. The news that the New Zealand. Government had determined to' make' provision for compulsory military service reached, the 'colonial troops in the trenches about the middle of July, and, ! according to letters received from the front Tay yesterday's mail, -was greeted by veteran. New Zealand soldiers with enthusiasm. • r One soldier writes to the editor of .the New Zealand Herald as follows : 'I have just read with pleasure that the Government has at last decided to adopt conscription. During, a few minutes' lull in the fighting I heard quite a commotion at the other end of the' trench. I went aloiig to see the reason, and' found' that a crowd of our fellows had the compulsion clauses cut out of the Herald and stuck on a notice hoard, and. they were giving it a cheer. I also read, in another paper some letters written against the .proposal . If these people were in a front trench, a!s I am now, and men were being killed all around them, and guns thundering on every side, t wonder what would they think? "I wonder what the lady writer of one of these letters would think if she saw little children, as I have seen them, being carried, in a mournful procession along the streets to their last resting places, and also women, young 1 and' old, having been blown to -pieces by the cursed Hun? Whenever we annoy ' him he always shells the .places where he thinks the women and children are—the churches and' convents, and such places. Methinks that if the lady writer saw some of the sights I have seen she would shed tears of hlood if she had anymale relation who refused to go. She speaks of a referendum. Well, sir, they would have to reckon tipon a block vote from the 40,000 or 50,000 soldiers that are at present fighting for the honour of all women, and for the lives of all dear Ijt'tle children. " "I may be dead long .before this reaches New Zealand; still, I ain proud of the day I decided, to come here to fight alongside the brave soldiers of France —the saddest country on earth, a nation in tears. Why should a counttry bother to put men in prison when they refuse to do their duty? Let them he stood against the nearest tree and shot like any other traitor ; and any, women who harbour these sentiments,Avell, send them to the munition factories, as they do in this coimtry."