A WORD TO SHIRKERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 November 1915, Page 8

A WORD TO SHIRKERS.

CAPTAIN DONALD SIMSON'S APPEAL, THE URGENT NEED EOR MEN. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Nov. 24 ''The nation to which we belong is fighting for its very existence and for its future," said Captain Donald Simson at the Y.M.C.A. rooms this evening. "When you look round New Zealand you can hardly believe there is a war at all. Thousands of you are going on complacently with your every day affairs, without troubling your heads about the greatest war of history. You are not winning. You are a very long way off winning. You will have to bestir yourselves, or you will have a very rude awakening indeed. "When the nation realises the facts you will get the men. When you get the men, you people who cannot fight •will have a duty to face. It will be your duty to see that no man who fights for you is worse off than he would have been if lie had remained safely m New Zealand. The Government is not doing- its job in this respect, and you people are responsible for the Government." Captain Simson proceeded to urge that invalided soldiers and the dependents of the men who had fallen should receive pensions regardless of their private means, if any. The man who went to the front should have an assurance that if he fell his dependents would receive the pension, even if he had contrived to make some provision for them on bis own account. It was right, too, that the State-should follow the example of some private employers and make up some part of what the men lost by leaving their employment and going to the front on soldiers'' pay. Captain Simson referred in his' recent speech on the Riccarton racecourse. "I said on that occasion that the ladies on the course by their presence approved of the gathering, and did not show, in my opinion, sufficient common decencv or respect for the nurses who had beeii drowned or for the men who had died or for the women who had suffered in Belgium," he stated. "I said to those around me that the man who was fit and able to go, and who did not go, was a callous rotter. The man who is fit, without any dependent on him, comes under that heading. The man who has dependents for whom he must provide is not fit and able to go until yy P e oplc have made that right for him."

In the course of a vigorous and interesting address the officer urged New Zealand to set an example to the whole Empire in its treatment of the men who were fighting the Empire's battles and making possible the comfortable existence of those who were staying at home. The Dominion, he said, had no right to pleat! inability to pay what was due to the soldiers. The war profits, the extra money that was bein» obtained through the war-inflated prices of wool and meat, would provide the meanss. During the evening Captain Sinison showed a number of very interesting lantern slides made from photographs taken by himself in -E»rpt and Gallipoli.