342 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



ness, was threatened with serious injury to, if not the possible 

 loss of some of her South African Colonies. There was no talk 

 of any complimentary acceptance on this occasion. The British 

 Government invited, and gratefully accepted, the assistance which 

 all the Colonies competed in proffering. Many thousands of 

 Australia's stalwart sons eagerly rushed to the front, and at least 

 as many more deplored the hard fate that barred their acceptance. 

 A member of the British House of Commons said with ungenerous 

 bluntness that "the contingents were sometimes merely symptoms 

 of a desire to combine a sort of authorised filibustering with the 

 benefits of a camp of instruction ; the outcome as much of the 

 natural desire of officers and men for adventure and experience, 

 as of a willingness of the colonial authorities to wash the spears 

 of the young men of their embryonic armies at the expense in 

 the main of the British taxpayer ". Such utterances, and there 

 were many of them, rankled with exceeding bitterness in the 

 minds of those who had father, brother or son sleeping in untended 

 graves on the veldt. As a matter of fact, neither the men nor 

 the authorities were inspired by the mercenary calculations thus 

 attributed to them. As for the men, not one in a hundred knew 

 anything of the horrors of war, of the stress and strain of the 

 hard life he was seeking. Very few of them knew, or cared to 

 inquire, about the rights or wrongs of the cause they joined. They 

 yielded to an irrepressible outburst of excited feelings, in which 

 loyalty, patriotism and a desire for distinction were mixed with 

 a restless craving for change and adventure, and an escape for 

 the time being from the dead monotony of life " out back ". It 

 was a sad year of drought, discouragement, unemployment and 

 general anxiety throughout Australia, and many volunteered in 

 the hope of better fortune in another land. And the community 

 generally encouraged them to go, despite the fact that the country 

 was languishing for men of pith and enterprise to develop its 

 resources. Hundreds of young men were allowed to leave the 

 Civil Service, the banks, and the merchants' offices to go to the 

 field of action, with a promise that if they survived, their appoint- 

 ments would be open for resumption on their return. Surely this 

 indicates a very widespread feeling of loyalty to the cause of the 



