CONSCRIPTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 301, 13 May 1913, Page 6

CONSCRIPTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

HON T. MACKENZIE DEALS WITH CRITICS. Thus the Hon. T. Mackenzie (High Commissioner for Xew Zealand) in the London Daily News on March 29: Mr. Gregory is again in eruption. He has allowed himself to become a recep- , tacle into which is poured every uncomplimentary thing that can be raked together to the discredit of New Zealand. Christchurch is undoubtedly the centre of such opposition to the Act as exists; but all Mr. Gregory's writings will not ! alter the fact that out of a House of Parliament of eighty members five only voted for the modification of our Defence Act. Nor will his treatment of the suU ject alter one word of the speech delivered by Mr. Veitch, of Wanganui, one of the most level-headed Labor members of our Parliament, when that gentleman on . that same division made the following statesmanlike remarks: "If the country," said he, "was \vorth living in it was worth defending, and every man in ths community should take his part in that defending if the necessity came. It was utter nonsense to say that all the labor organisations in the country were opposed to compulsory military training." Yesterday I received a letter from New Zealand in which a. working man, who recently arrived there, states that he is receiving far higher wages at Wanganui for a working day of eight hours than he received in the Old Country for a working day of fourteen hours, and he says that "New Zealand is indeed a working man's paradise." Such men as he are the missionaries of emigration, and they are inducing their friends here to go out and share with them in the blessings that follow an industrious life in the land of Hope and Liberty. It will, perhaps, not be pleasant reading for Mr. Gregory when I tell him that so great is the desire on the part of good and worthy people to go out to New Zealand, that our shipping accommodation was quite insufficient to meet the demand of emigrants. Fortunately last month I was enabled to arrange with the shipping companies to take out, if necessary, four times the number of emigrants that they had been carrying for us to these Blessed Islands in the Southern Seas. I may add that all these people are told of the provisions of the Defence Act, and, in addition to that, on almost every platform where I speak I mention the .provisions of that Act, and nij remarks are, without exception, received with approval by those whom I address.