THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED MONDAYS, WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1915 OUR WOUNDED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 109, 17 November 1915, Page 2

THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times

PUBLISHED MONDAYS, WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1915 OUR WOUNDED.

The Official Organ of : The Franklin County Council. The Pukekohe Borough Council. The Tuakau Town Board. The Karaka Road Board. The Pokeno Road Board. The Wairoa Road Board. The Papakura Towu Board. The Waikato River Board. The Mfrcer Town Board.

" We nothing extenuate, nor net down auaht in malice."

"When war is looming, and the foe is rigb, 'God and the Soldier' is the people's cry. When war is over and the danger righted, God is forgotten and the soldier (lighted."

Nearly fifty years ago those linos were written on the walls of the lock-up at Nzaruawahia by a man ol the 18th Regiment, the Royal Irish. After fighting through the strenuous Waikato and Bay of Plenty campaigns he had tiken his dischaige in New Zealand, and while oat of work had done something or other that had brought bim into tbe clutches of the law. And behind him be left this true and, because tiue, terrible indictment.

Will God be forgotten and the soldier slighted when the Great War is over, and we sink snugly back once more into peace and security? Shall we be any better than our forbears were in our treatment of thj men who have offered, and too often lost, life and limb in Ihe defence of the Empire, ar.d everything tbe Empire means, rot only to ns but to all the free nations on earth? It is to be feared not. Let us then act before the greatest tragedy of all times is played to a finish; while the glow of great deeds and glorious selfsacrifice still irradiate tbe horizon. But a few days now remain before the closing of the fund for the maintenance of our wounded and the dependents of those we have lost forever. Now, now is tbe time for us 'to open our hearts and our purse-strings, especially those among us who are ot military age, but have not yet listened ti tbe call of their country. In the years to come the man who could have gone but did not, who might have paid but would not, will find it difficult to justify his continued existence among a community, tbe vast majority of whom have, to their eternal credit, realised their sacred obligations and done what they could to assist their Empire with their persons or with their possessions. K henceforward the double shirker, the man who shunß not only Lis miiltary but bis financial duty, is looked upon as an outcast and a pariah hs will only have himself to blame.