The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1917. TIME TO TAKE STOCK.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 18 June 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1917. TIME TO TAKE STOCK.

(With which is incorporated The Taihapo Post and Waimarino News).

There is not a man amongst us that will not view with alarm the fact that the last able-bodied, single man, as well as those married since war began, in this country, will have gone to the war by about September next. These little islands will have contributed the flower of their males, constituting about one-tenth of their entire population, towards saving the British Empire from worse than annihilation, ft is a terrible sacrifice made by parents who have braved isolation in vir-

gin forests, amongst mountains intersected with treacherous rivers, in bringing this young land to its pre-, sent state of production. The men and women who have l/iade New Zealand the envy of syndicates, trusts, and combines have lived to be compelled to face this worst of all" scourges, a fight for very existence, and they have nobly shouldered their responsibilities, until now the day is approaching when they must mourn the last able-bodied of their young men. They have given nobly, "generously and freely, quite in accordance' with the best traditions of British spirit, until some of us are inclined to ask whether there are no "buts." Our people would willingly send their last man to fight and their last woman to nurse, but, is it really necessary that a dangerous extreme should be risked in de-populating this young land? There are only a little over half-a-mil-lion of men in New Zealand altogether and we have already sent about one-fifth of these away, the young men, the healthy, able men; the specially selected, medically fit men, and now we are almost on the eve of the day when the husbands and fathers will have to be taken from their homes to face the German Moloch. It does not seem quite clear that we are taking stock of the men that well be left to run the country when the Second Division men have been called away. True, there was something over half-a-million of males in the land when Avar commenced, but they included the aged, infirm, diseased, decrepit and otherwise disabled. In the calling up of our men in the Second Division we are facing a truly appalling situation. It presents a vision of a young country with five hundred thousand men all told. These men are sorted over and every able-bodied one, whether he is a husband and father, or not, is taken away, arid wha'tTTo we see to keep up production, to keep our business houses from bankruptcy to work for the means whereby the wives, widows and children left are to be fed and clothed? There is no "but" about what New Zealandefs are willing to give, v and will give, if it is necessary, but is it necessary that all our able married men should be taken away? Perhaps it is, and we do not say it is not, we only

say that it is quite time we stopped to think, and to take stock of our position. From the first gun being fired America had as much to lose as Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and Servia; her independence and existence as a free nation was just as much threatened, yet the American people have only now commenced to contribute men towards destroying the world's common enemy. Is it necessary to depopulate New Zealand of every able-bodied man, leaving nothing but the aged, infirm, diseased and decrepit to carry on the country while America has from six to ten million young men to take that part in fighting which America has up to now avoided? Should New Zealand break up her homes and render families fatherless, while millions of young men are available, and anxious to fight, at a quarter the distance from the actual battlefields in Europe? Is it not a bad proposition from a cost point of view to take fathers of families sixteen thousand miles across the ocean, while single men are plentiful only some three thousand miles away? The saving in time and money would be almost incalculable were the present Allied armies in the field reinforced from America instead of from New Zealand. A Farmers' Union Conference, at Christchurch, proposed to ask our Government to asqfertain if it is possible to make arrangements with the War Office to get men from the United States when all our First Division is' called up. It was urged that when ten per cent, of the manhood of this country had gone, that should be the limit. America could put men in the field quicker, and her wounded, if sent back to America, would not be a drain on the food resources of Great Britain. Our Government has not yet answered this question, but it continues to proclaim that more men and still more men must be forthcoming. If it really is a matter of necessity that our homes should be destroyed before the United States can actively take part, then we must cheerfully and willingly submit, for the whole future existence of Empire hangs upon the way we of the present-day act up to the glorious traditions of our race. But it does seem as though our people are fully entitled to some of their Government's confidence. We hesitate to picture what the economic condition of this country must drift into when all ablebodied males have been taken away.