The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1917 A QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 12 September 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1917 A QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT.

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

The glamour that oucc attended the sending of men into training camps is now as dead as the Moa, and the enthusiasm we were wont to express, accompanied by fairy tales about how we would receive them and what we would do for them on their return no longer find expression. The newness of saying farewell to soldiers leaving for the front has worn off, and our promises to be fulfilled on their return are virtueless. Are we so consumed with our own comfort and money getting as not to be able to spare a moment to think of the irretrievable sacrifices that many men going to the front have been compelled, by the laws we make, to .suffer? To-day a man who has his all in his little business or farm has to sell out just for what can be got for it. If ever the word confiscation applied to anything it certainly is the only word that is applicable to what is not infrequently taking place under the vaunted justice of our laws to-day. What bewilders thoughtful, humane, just people, those who remember the promises made to the men who are snatched from the place in the world they have made for themselves, is the country’s attitude to men who have not been physically able to withstand the rigours of camp training. With their business; their farms; their means of living gone, and the little money got for it locked up, they are turned out like dry cows from a pad-

dock to roam wherever they will, unthought of, unprovided for, and even uncared for. It was gratifying to see that Mr. R. W. Smith from his place in the House has not forgotten what th e country’s duty to these men is. He asked the Prime Minister whether it was the intention during the present session to. bring down legislation to enable men who have been in camp, and discharged therefrom before leaving New Zealand to apply for land under the "Returned Soldiers’ Settlement Act.” In many cases, said Mr. Smith men had left good positions, in others they had parted with farms and businesses to enable them to go into, camp but under the present law they were

not able to obtain land, as all the land available was reserved for returned soldiers. The Prime Minister wanted time to answer Mr. Smith’s question. Here is an injustice of overbearing magnitude and yet the Prime Minister had not given it the consideration or thought to enable him to give an answer. Is there, we would like to ask Mr. Massey, no vein of justice running through our. harsh conscription laws? The pity of it is that the class of men liable to conscription have not the making of the laws just for a session, for then Mr. Massey, and a host of self-seekers might be brought to a sense of their responsibilities, and to abandon the cruel procedure which has become little short of shameful. Mr. Smith, the Member for this constituency will jperhaps (receive an answer to his question to-day, and we trust it will not be a reply that will dishonour the people of the whole of the Dominion. Mr. Smith drew the Premier’s attention to the fact that present law reserves all available land for Returned Soldiers. We are perplexed over the wording of the Statute, for it may mean anything; the land available will be of an area that reflects the views of men like Mr. Massey, who prefer to pursue a policy of aggrega-

tion rather than make land available for soldiers, and for men such as Mr. Smith is championing, and who are evidently not considered soldiers till they have actually been in action. We suppose that a man returned from Fremantle, Durban, or somewhere else en route to the front, is in the Returned Soldier category, and yet he has done no more for his country than he who is returned from Featherston, or Trcn* tham. These men are under, serious disability, and no honest minded man should hesitate for a moment to free them. The Press of this country has been urging upon the Government to be in readiness with ample land, and they were met by the Minister of Defence telling them that there was more land available that was wanted. If the statement approximately represents th e position/ |vhy should be /any

demur or delay about letting those men they have Torn from their farms, businesses and positions, apply for it with a reasonable chance of getting it. There need be practically no limit to land that can be made available; in this district, wo have several hundreds of thousands of acres. The Maori people have set us an example; we might fairly say, they have shamed us in their humane provision for their soldiers. The Maoris in this district alone have made a free gift of seventy-five thousand acres for settlement. No

sooner bad they passed this area over to the Government than they were beseiged with offers from land-grabbers for the adjoining forty-five thousand acres. We were consulted by that great Maori patriot, Kingi Topea, and he and his people decided to offer, that block also to the Government at one pound per acre less thanl was offered for it by private individuals. Her e was another £45,000 thrown at the Government. Precisely what will eventuate from a deputation of these loyal Maoris who waited on the Prime Minister, we cannot of course say, but Mr. Massey said the Government would take the land so generously offered and that he would immediately put it into the hands of the Land Purchase Board. What are we Europeans doing that will in any respect compare with what these Maoris are doing. Are Maoris less sensible of value of money than the Pakeha? No, they arc not, but they are free from that selfishness and greed, and indifference to justice with which we by our land laws are besmirched. It is plainly every man's duty to take a stand in seeing that no man who enlists into the army to fight his country’s battles should be made to part with everything he has and then be left to hunt for a place in the community that will fit him without some assistance from those who made the laws which forced him to precipitately sell all that he had and go into camp. We await, with our Representative in Parliament, the Prime Minister’s reply to his question, and we trust it will be fully in accordance with the advanced civilisation we profess.