DOMINION TROOPS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 173, 12 May 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

DOMINION TROOPS.

MARKED KEENNESS. WANT TO FIGHT GERMANS. Australia pervades Egypt (qwrites the Cairo correspondent oi the London •Daily Telegraph.") In Cairo one might suppose that it was the Commonwealth rather than the Old Country that occupies the land. The dig men with the rising sun badge and the tunics with pleated hack, are everywhere in the town, and then- numbers are rapidly growing. New Zealand is doubling or trebling her contingent. The Siuth African force has already been engaged in th? western desert. A Southern Dominions Anny might he formed out of the troops from Australia. New Zealand and "South Africa, who ar* already in Egypt or on their wav thither. The South Africans, the major ty of whom aav. of British birth, are all infantrymen. Many of the-m, from their past training, would have preferred u colonial cavalry regiment to foot-slog-ging; out they one and all wanted to get"to France and light Gein.ans, and ju they were told that only infantry could used in France they enlistod in the newly formed infantry brigade. By so doing they forfeited the high colonial pay and became Brit sh soldiers at the same rate of pay as the men who join in England. They are men who in ordinary times are accustomed to the—according to British notions—extravagant South African wages, and no doubt insist jealously en the last shilling of them, but for the chance of getting to gr;ps with the Germans in Europe they were willing to waive the qucston of pay. It is noteworthy that all the men from the Dominions that I have met share this point of view. They all want to fight the Germans, and to fight them where they ore strosgent—in Flanders. The Australians notably, who love a fight for itself, and perceive \ that tne Germans consider themselves the best fighting men on the earth, long to show them how mistaken they are. After that, if the Turks are still dissatisfied, they will be delighted to attend to them.