EMPIRE DEFENCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 278, 21 November 1914, Page 4

EMPIRE DEFENCE.

Tfie Mercantile Gazette holds the view that the Dominion should go a long way further than it has done in the way of despatching troops to the front. In its latest issue it says: “We must; confess to a feeling of disappointment | that in the political issues which have been raised by the two contesting parties who are now asking for the de-j cision of the electors, neither side seems to pay any consideration to the one great question which is before the country to-day. Compared with the defence of the Empire in this hour of peril the purely domestic matters which apparently fill the minds of our would-be legislators sink into trivial insignificance. We have not heard one word from either side'as to what they propose shall be done with regard to the question which now dominates every other issue. The Government appears to think that it has reached its limit by despatching the tVo expeditionary forces, and we give all credit to the defence authorities for having made so good a start, but England’s need is men and we should have been more satisfied if Mr Massey or the Leader of the Opposition had said in plain and emphatic language that they were in favor of sending 50,000 soldiers to the war and that if necessary they would compel those to go who were inclined to shirk their responsibilities.