A TRENCH IMPRESSION.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 85, 8 April 1916, Page 3

A TRENCH IMPRESSION.

AFTER-WAR IMMIGRATION. Mr. Harry S. Gullett told the Million Club in Sydney recently of an Impression which he gathered in one of the trenches on th e Western front. "With other correpondents," he said, "I got in a trench where a knot of about 20 men, mostly Unionists, were enjoying some tea. We had cigarettes, which we served round, and were glad of a'pannikan of tea. Talking to one of the English soldiers I found h e was a Birmingham tailor's cutter, so I said to him: 'I suupose you won't care much about going back to the old job when you get back?' 'By God, won't I?' was his reply." Mr. Gullett mentioned this as an aside during an expression of belief that in Great Britain and in Europe after the war there would be a swinging back to conditions prevailing in pre-war days. There was, he said, a lot of loose talk about the flood, of British immigrants that would come to Australia after the war. H e did not think

there would be such a flood. For one thing, the British wastage of workmen would have to be made up; for another the demobilisation of armies would not be complete for perhaps a year after the cessation of hostilities, and for another the personal element of return to the home circle would keep men long enough to allow T old conditions to reassert themselves. He strongly advised Australians, particularly workmen, to give a more cordial 'welcome to British immigrants than they had.

In regard to Mr. Hughes' declaration regarding the fiscal issue, Mr. Gullett said it was as clear to many in England as it was to him that freetrade was stone dead. After the war there would be a gene Val protective tariff, and the next general election in England would be on the question of pro-German goods or against German goods., Ne shadow of doubt existed as to which way the verdict would go. (Cheers.) In addition, he believed there would be a strong demand for favourable treatment for the Allies and strong preference within the Empire.