OFFENSIVE VERSES.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 December 1919, Page 6

OFFENSIVE VERSES.

SOLDIERS TAKE ACTION. PUNISHMENT OF AUTHOR. Sydney, Dec. 10. Away back in 1001, at the time of the Boer War, a Labor member of the Federal House of Representatives, Mr. J. K. MeDougall, wrote and published verses reflecting upon the soldier. They werfe read, 17 years ago, and forgotten. But in 1!)1:>, when the anti-war Labor men were beginning to make their activities felt, someone looked them up and published them in the Labor Call, a Melbourne publication, now the official 9rgan of the Labor Party. Naturally, they gave great offence to many people. Mr. Hughes, making a public address to returned soldiers, read the lavish election promises of the Labor Party to the soldiers, and contrasted them with what the Labor Party said about the soldiers in the critical war period. Among others, he read those verses. Mr. Hughes' speech was published everywhere, and the verses caused not only indignation, but fury. Labor's 191(5 insult came home to roost with a vengeance. Returned soldiers all over the country passed angry resolutions.

Last Saturday night a party of returned soldiers went to the home of Mr. McDougall, near Ararat, in Victoria. A man went in and found Mr. McDougall with his wife and brother. He asked for a crowbar to mend a motor-car. McDougall lent him the implement and came out to the gate with him. He was promptly seized, blindfolded and bound. Interrogated, he said he wrote the poem and admitted that he had not objected to its publication in the Labor Call. - The man was then taken away, stripped, tarred, and covered with feathers and kapok. He was then taken into the crowded streets of Ararat and turned loose. He went to a hotel, where he 'was given assistance. Although it is recognised that the poem was a brutal and horrible insult to soldiers and their relatives, the attack on McDougall has caused great indignation among all classes of people. The returned soldiers' associations have all denied any connection with the incident.