HUMAN WASTAGE OF WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 128, 31 May 1916, Page 2

HUMAN WASTAGE OF WAR.

PRAISEWORTHY MOVEMENT

Moved by the spectacle of maimed humanity which war leaves behind, the foreigners residing in France have formed a union to aid the mutilated young soldiers in finding new places in the social machinery that they can fill. There are included -in this union representatives of nearly ai'l the neutral nations in the world, and all the allies, The re-education -of the mutilated soldiers will be one of the great social problems after the Avar, and the Friends of France, have decided not to wait until peace is declared to make plans fo the solution of the problem. How many young veterans there are in France it is impossible to say. The British Army and Navy are said to be discharging men at the rate of 1,000 a day as unfit material for the great war machine. The French Army and Navy must: be leaving behind a much greater number, having been in action much longer, and covering move ground One set of figures shows that there are to-day no fewer than 05,000 veterans of this war in France who have consumption to such an extent that they are practically beyond hope. The number of those who have lost an arm. or a leg. both arms or both legs, an eye, or both, or ! who have lost their hearing, is legion. At every turning here in Paris, one meets mutilated soldiers, all young men in their prime. The tramcars, the subi way, the trains are full of them. To see a pair of soldiers with one leg eacTi, or with one arm. each, is a common thing in Paris nowadays. Generally they have medals for bravery, but they cannot eat their medals. Who is going to feed them in the future? It has been found that to a marvellous 'loo-roe these young soldiers are able to adapt themselves to new occupations in which their misfortune will not hamper them so much A one-legged mas -annot be a farmer, but he can support himself as a shoemaker, a tailor, a tovmakor. or ?s an office worker. All lie is a new education, and that is what the union of the Friends of Franco nlan to p;ive to as main' at possible. It ; .- n work that those who hove escaped f rom the horrors of war owe to the "ommon cause of humanity.