Our Duty is Plain.

Our duty to my mind is plain. We must stand shoulder to shoulder with our kin beyond the seas, as people desiring justice and freedom, and striving for brotherhood. This is our duty. page 14 There may be a few craven souls in our midst who are pro-German, and who care little for the glory, or even the existence, of the British Empire. They are so few as not to be worth considering. The great mass of our citizens have done much to help our Empire; they have gone to fight for her, and they have out of their abundance given her monetary aid. Our young men have done nobly. They have been true heroes. To show you the heroic spirit displayed by some of our New Zealand boys, may I be permitted to give you a short extract from a letter from one who lost his life in France. The letter was written just before he left for his last attack on the German trenches:—

To-morrow night we go forward to the brink, and the next morning at dawn we hop over the parapet on one of the most difficult tasks ever given to a division. There can be only one result—every man will do his clean British bit, and there will be very very many who will never come back. We all know what we are up against; we have heard again and a train of the pitiful handful of men who have returned broken out of whole battalions who have gone forward to push back the Hun. We have seen the ground over which such battalions have fought, and the heaps of dead they have been unable to bury: but, thank God there is not one single man of us New Zealanders who does not welcome this long-awaited chance to do our bit. A wee bit frightened some of us may be; I am a bit afraid myself, and will be more so on the day; but it is our chance, our chance to give one big blow to Germany for all you dear ones back in New Zealand, for you who have given up your sons, who have given up your money, who have suffered deep anxiety and page 15 pain for our sakes—our chance to show that once the old Mother Lion is threatened the young cubs are ready to jump to her help and show the strength of their newly-won manhood—our first chance, and we are going to take it. If we win through it's going to be a big day in the history of New Zealand; if we fail it shall not be through any lack of dash, of go of willingness, of heart in the individual men.

But we are one and all determined to win through, cost what it may—the thought of failure has no place in our minds.

Now Dad, I may be one of the unfortunates. Hence this letter. But I'd like you to know that I'm not frightened of whatever may come my way. In one way I am frightened—for I defy any man, to say that fear does not grip his heart when something big is doing. But I'm not frightened of a wound, and I am not frightened to die. Death must come sooner or later, and death on a battlefield is without a shadow of doubt the most glorious of all ends. [unclear: For] myself, it means nothing more [unclear: than] a snuff of the candle. But for you and for mother, and for the kiddies it means more. More than ever do I wish that I had not a single soul to worry about me, not a soul to mourn my death. A peculiar wish, perhaps: but you will understand how I feel. For myself the worries of what might happen to me are insignificant; but for you, at home, going into hot action means one of the most heartfelt worries I've ever had to face.

But, whatever happens. I'm going to do my duty. I have my boys to think of—men who have seen me tested in other hot corners, and who have come to place upon my leadership a confidence that I cannot betray. I have my country to think of, and I page 16 am determined to prove that I have the blood of a Briton in me.