Page 8 Advertisements Column 3

Taranaki Daily News, 16 March 1916, Page 8

At a farewell tn Balclutha soldiers the Mayor (Mr. Stewart) spoke very confidently and optimistically as to the war ending soon. Ho said those men who were going away now were in quite a different position to those who had gone before. Some of the latter had come back wounded, and some hud not come back at all, but he possessed evidence that the men who were going away now would not see any fighting at all. He had it on very high authority through the agency of friends at Home and on the authority of a British Cabinet Minister tlmt the war would er.d very soon. That was also the opinion of a Xew Zealand Minister of the Crown, as he happened to know. "I've no doubt at all in my mind,'' continued the speaker, "that our young men will be going o!) a pleasant trip to Britain, and may take part in the grand triumphal march into Berlin, and that they will sec no fighting." Which, in our humble opinion, is so much speculative bunkum. To end the war many more thousands of ('enmins have to he killed, and New Zealanders will iipcci to take a hand in the killing. If the ,var ends bv the end of the present year we can heartily congratulate ourselves.