UNFAIR COMPULSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 April 1916, Page 6

UNFAIR COMPULSION.

To the Editor. Sir,—"Employer No. 2," in his letter this morning, makes the suggestion that shopkeepers and others should be boycotted if they do not forwith discharge all eligibles in their service. The suggestion is an un-British one, and, further, it is not, in my opinion, the function of the employer to become a recruiting sergeant, with power to penalise. The plain facts of the case are that the Government is shirking its plain duty in not bringing in compulsion and relieving the general public of the unpleasant duty of having to go round from house to house asking for eligibles, with no power to have their demands respected. It is all very well to say that men compelled will not be as good as those who volunteer. This contention is so much piffle. Do the Germans or French display cowardice because they are compelled to defend their country? Then, again, "Employer's" suggestion is compulsion for tlie section of eligibles who have to earn their living or who are under employers, but what does he suggest should he done with the la "go number of young men who are not employed and who do not require to earn their living, or the farmers' sons who work for their fathers? His suggestion is a mean form of conscription for one class only. The Government's plain duty is to take what they want in men and kind to win the war. and do it quickly. We are only playing with the whole matter, and suggestions like your correspondent's only help a milk-and-water Government to'shirk its plain duty—l am ,etc, X.