The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1916. AUSTRALIA’S DECISION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 31 October 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1916. AUSTRALIA’S DECISION.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Wainiarino News).

The prospects for the success of the referendum poll in Australia seem to be anything but bright. Recruiting fell off to such an extent, thousands of young men were willingto send their shop-mates and friends, and they appear to be just as willing to leave them in the trenches without further help. The Australian Parliament did not pass a “Military Service Act,” such as was passed last session by the New Zealand Parliament, but it tardily decided to take a referendum of the whole population to ascertain if the popular will was in favour of instituting some form of compulsion that would enable the Government to honour its word to the Mother Country with respect to the men it would furnish in fighting the common enemy of liberty in Europe, and voting is still proceeding on the following question: “Are you in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service, for the term of the war, outside the Commonwealth, as it now has in regard to military service within the Commonwealth?” This is what the referendum voting paper asks, and, of course, it is answerable by a plain yes or no. Yesterday there were 801,422 people? who wrote yes, while there were 838, 283 who wrote no. These figures are not complete, but the final- returns will probably be cabled and published to-day. What are regarded as the only mean;; of raising men to honour Australia s word are denied to the Commonwealth Government by New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia, while Victoria, West Australia anq Tasmania are in favour.

Conscription is lost 'by a majority of 86,860 votes. The result of this poll is most unexpected; it will cast a stigma upon the Commonwealth that will ever remain a stain on its escutcheon. That it is the result of German influence, German money and intrigue there is now sufficient evidence in recent prosecutions to establish beyond doubt, but that these influences should have so deeply and widely affected Australian life and feeling is cause for the greatest alarm. We commence to ask ourselves whether, no matter which way the war goes, we are to succumo through a falsey security to German domination. Do people realise how very near they are to it now, or will they ever realise that only a small matter, as some people think the the repudiation of our word to the Home Government in some such way as Aus tralia is doing, will determine the future of English speaking peoples, will end the glorious British Empire, for the existence of which our forbears so gallantly and bravely fought, and we, its people, will become the hewers of wood and carriers of water for our German overlords? We would like to impress upon our readers tha? this is no fanciful story, it is one of the sternest facts by which we were ever faced. There is no side-tracking this German menace; it is very real and it is very close upon us, and the only way we can assist in securing the right to live is to have a full realisation which will evoke the determination to combat it by every means in our power and with our last man. Every honourable man in Australia to-day, who stands for the freedom of all peoples will bend his head in sorrow at the result of the Australian peoples’ decision.

GERMAN INFLUENCE AND MONEY The latest indications of the referendum poll in 'Australia are neither honourable or creditable to the people of that great portion of the British Empire. It merely demonstrates, however, to what extent German intrigue and influence has been permitted to pursuue their deadly work in British social and political life. The accursed Hun culture has infested the very domestic life of Australia; Britons are virile and brave and honourable until they become infected with the virus of Hun culture, as exemplified in the sabotage and even murder and assassination practised and preached by the emissaries of Germany in Australia. The final struggle for supremacy in the great war is to be the occasion for Australia's dishonour unless something almost miraculous happens. Her bond to assist in fighting off the invader is to be worthless; men at home enjoying high wages and high living are voting that they live in luxury at home, leaving their brothers without assistance in the great struggle in Europe, making their country break a compact involving certain obligations; without conscience they repudiate their promises to the Empire. The worst aspect is that we have men of this ilk in New Zealand. Are we going to view this awful canker growing into the life of our people until we become as a nation dishonorable as to be the object of scorn and the tool of German kultur, to be spurned and enslaved when we have built up the necessary Hun power, without lifting a voice or a finger against it? There is no doubt about the existence of the 1.W.W., otherwise Hun tools and spies, in this country, for they have encouraged their brother devotees of sabotage and murder in Australia. Others have sent messages encouraging Australians to disregard their obligations to the Empire in this fearful war, leaving those in the trenches in France to be slaughtered with German deviltries for all they will do or care. Some of these men have got into our Parliament from whence they are given a voice that would not otherwise be heard from anywhere but a dunghill. These men say let somebody else do the fighting, and we say away with these men, they should not have a place in a community of brave, honourable men. They are poisoning the very national virus, making us a. cowardly, conscienceless, spineless people, meat for Hun or any other bloodthirsty savage people that happen our way. We trust that for the honour of New Zealand our word to the Motherland will be kept to the last letter; that this country will emerge from the war as a brave nation, able to hold its head high among the peoples of the earth; that it will have earned the respect of th e world, and that its exploits of bravery and honour will be read with enthusiasm and pride by New Zealanders many hundreds of years hence.