The Recruiting Committee has secured the services of Mr D. McLaren, ex M.P. for Wellington, who is in town just now on patriotic business.
Mr McLaren is well known throughout New Zealand as one of the strongest speakers of the Labour Party, and one who can command attention wherever he speaks.
Dunedin citizens should not miss this opportunity of hearing such strong men as Mr McLaren and the Rev. R. S. Gray on the same subject and on the same platform.
Saturday evening will see the campaign continued in the same place with other strong speakers, and no stone is to be left unturned in order to ensure full registrations from the men of Otago.
There should be no need to emphasise the enormous wastage going on in our ranks at the Dardanelles.
It must be apparent to all that we have a harder task than was at first anticipated, but there can be no turning back now; it cannot end until the enemy is driven from the Peninsula.
Those attending Saturday night's meeting will have an opportunity of hearing Mr H. H. Scott, who just recently returned wounded from the Dardanelles.
He will give some first hand facts right from the trenches, and should be a power in convincing any of those hesitating as to where their duty lies.
His wounds are not yet fully healed. He has the advantage also of knowing the Belgian battlefields, having motored over them and flown over them. The National Reserve Band will be present on Saturday night, and one of the other brass bands on Friday night.
• A letter, received in Auckland from an officer of the headquarters staff of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, written from Gallipoli on July 7, contains a paragraph which will be of interest to many anxious relatives of men reported wounded and missing.
''If your brother is a wounded prisoner, you may rest assured that he is being properly looked after by the Turks, as we have overwhelming evidence that they are looking after their wounded prisoners well, in spite of the fact that they have over 60,000 of their own wounded.''
This is borne out (says the Herald) by an extract from the letter of another officer recently invalided home, after being wounded in a heavy engagement at Quinn's Post.- ''If taken prisoner, and sick and wounded, he will be well cared for, and if unharmed, will be treated with consideration.
''The officers of the enemy, in the great majority of cases, are treating their prisoners with the same consideration that we extend to ours.''
• Information was given by the Minister of Defence in the House of Representatives regarding the position of young men who had been passed for the Expeditionary Forces by the department's medical officers, but who, later, had been rejected by the officers at Trentham on the grounds of deficient chest measurement and other defects.
Mr Allen said he was unable to give any general undertaking to pay compensation under the circumstances, but would be willing to inquire into cases where distinct hardship was inflicted.
The point was that frequently a man concealed his disabilities, and made misleading statements to the examining medical officer, and consequently these disabilities appeared only after training or active service.
- ODT, 2.9.1915.
