Mew Zealand

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 3, 6 April 1916, Page 5

Mew Zealand

RECRUITING CAMPAIGN. DEFENCE MINISTER AT MILTON. j I Per Press Association. ! Milton, April 5. , Hon. James Allen addressed Ids constituents at Milton to-night. His speech was chiefly devoted to enumerating the reasons why the Government and the Recruiting Board’s schenje should receive the warmest support of local bodies, every member of the community who was not eligible for active service, and ail women. One of the chief reasons he pressed was that should voluntaryism not be successful it would be essential that there should be a complete roll of eligiblos, chiefly single eligible men, so that conscription could be introduced at a few weeks’ notice. | Then, he said, there was the immense expendiure incurred in connection with the war. The total expenditure on the War Expenses Account was to date £8,700,000, and, approximately, the rate of spending was nearly £600,000 a month. We were business enough people to come to the conclusion that we must gain some-' tiding adequate in return, not necessarily material reward, but'the satisfaction of knowing absolutely that j truth, justice, and liberty had been 'put on top, and injustice, cruelty, and j murder put down. Mr Allen made a great point of our occupation of Samoa, and what had been done preparatory to its remaining a portion of the Empire. We would win the war, but to do that men must be provided.

FAREWELL TO GALLIPOLI.

“I hope that those fellows who lie buried aloijg the Derc will be soundly sleeping, and not hear us as we march away.”—A soldier’s saying. 'if; Not only muffled is pur tread To cheat the foe. We fear to ropHe our honored dead To heah|pV‘go ‘ ■ Sleep sound, the keenest smart i. 'ffi. : Which, more than failure, wounds the heart, Is thus to leave you—thus to part. Comrades, farewell! Together throbbed our hearts that night, ’ . When, through the foam, Shone—flickered —faded from our sight The lights of home. From East, from West, we gathered here, New friends we made, old grown more dear, - We leave you with the dying year, Comrades, farewell !

To those of Us hot doomed to lie On some new. held, Country ani'||hnie>will by and ljy Theiywelcome yield. In that gla&^bur'our hearts will stray Back to ahd Suvla Bay, To you; whbse absence clouds the day. Comrades, farewell ! For you “a praise which grows not old” Is more meet tomb Than sepulchre, engraved with gold, In stately gloom, On hearts of men, O lonely dead! • For all time graven, may be read How for man’s sake you died, you bled. Comrades, farewell ! -J. L. (These very beautiful and most touching verses have been handed to us (Hawera Star) by a gentleman who lately received them from a friend in the Old Country. They are so fine that it gives us unqualified pleasure to publish them.—Ed.)