SOMEBODY BLUNDERED!

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 36, 12 October 1915, Page 4

SOMEBODY BLUNDERED!

At a time when recruiting needs ; stimulating in every way it is a pit;j that oven in small matters we are not more careful. The half-convinced-that-hfs-serv ices-are-needed- volunteer may be brought right up to the mark by the heartening sight of his brethren oil' to the trenches, gayly laughing and holding themselves with, honest pride. The line thrill of martial music at such a moment also has its telling effect. But it does not take much to dampen the early spark of ardour in some constitutions. It is for this reason we think that the send-off of the Stratford Contingent of the Ninth last night might have had a less gloomy setting, and, incidentally, might have influenced one !or two young men who know they ought to he up and doing, hut who find it hard to make the sacrifice. Warm feeling .was aroused at the ; methods adopted by the authorities in connection with the departure of the batch of recruits by the troop , train. With commendable spirit the Pipe Band played the men from the School to the Station, but there the ceremony ended—ended, indeed, in such a dismal way, that if the remarks, which were general arc any criterion the farewell was anything but a credit to Stratford. The station platform was not lighted up until within a minute or two before the , arrival of the train, and it was imI possible for anyone to find his or her friend or relative among the depart-, inc soldiers not to mention the impropriety of such a crowd being congregated in a public place in the darkness. From the Defence Authority's point of view, the barricad-ing-off of the men was, no doubt, a very excellent, tiling, assisting a s it does in the keeping of order and discipline, but as events transpired last hight this arrangement only helped. to make confusion worse confounded. While the Defence Authorities are. perhaps, perfectly ,satisfied from their point of view, people are asking very pertinent questions as to who is to blame for the wretched display in a town of the size'and importance of Stratford. The scene could not have been more dismal at any little wayside station the other side of Whanga. for instance. " Who is to blame? Was it by order of the Defence ■Department that the people were; thus treated after sending their loved ones to fight on a foreign shore and undergo the hardships of a war campaign? It seemed somewhat incongruous, to put it mildly, that recruiting posters in flaring red tell the peo.ple'tbaft one hundred men aTe trrgent--1 ly wanted todil] up' the gaps in the .rank's of the Reinforcements., and, at the same' time the Defence Authorities treat the source .of their supply like'dumb-driven cattle. This 'way of looking at the position may appear to be strong, "hut many harder things were said last night by the indignant crowd. Leaving the Defence Department to put itself right with the public, what position is the Railway in? On the best of authority, it is stated, a leading citizen in the military movement askeu for the station to be lighted up. -but no one on duty would take the responsibility of touching the switch. When he said further that he would go bail, as it were, in the matter, and would do so himself, he was refused information as to where the switch was. ft will be'hard to explain away such miserable officialism as this, and also the reasons for the closing of the gates against the public, who were compelled to find their way on to to the platform, via the cattlestops! The Band, indeed, after being requested to play the men away, were not allowed on the platform. The feelings of parents who were not able to have a last word of farewell may well .be imagined. "They were like a gang of prisoners behind the. barricade!" was one man's opinion of the scene; another said he had seen a better send-off to a team of footballers! "If this is militarism," .said rtitother, ''the less we have of it the better!" But there' is no need to labor the point. The fact remains that public opinion is thoroughly roused, in a case like this, public opinion is a tolerably good judge of right" and wrong, and it now demands to know who is responsible for this dismal affair.