The Catholic Bulletin

PLACING RETURNED SOLDIERS.

A strange problem has arisen since the signing of the armistice last November. Several million young men went forth to do battle for democracy, and to safeguard those who remained at home. The citizens who stayed within the confines of this country and pursued their civilian occupations were enabled to pass their days and nights peacefully and without fear by reason of the men who took upon themselves the defence of the country.

That our soldiers did well the allotted task is proven by the victories they speedily rolled up, the force they threw into the fray, the quickness with which the enemy sued for peace after witnessing the prowess of our heroes.

Now these heroic battlers return to their homes and to their former employers. Surely do the soldiers and sailors deserve all that a grateful nation can bestow upon them. Oratory, flowers, pageants, processions, banquets and fulsome praise are the order of the day. But disloyalty still survives, and it shows itself nowhere more plainly than in the persons of certain employers who refuse to reinstate their former employees--the present heroes--in their old or better positions. While an exception here and there may be found, it is monstrous and dastardly on the part of those who deny the soldier his right to the employment which he left at the call of his country's need.

In Australia the Defence of the Realm Act provides that an employer, refusing to reinstate a returned soldier, may be fined two thousand dollars and this amount be turned over to the soldier. This may sound drastic: it is as nothing, however, compared to the base and ungrateful conduct of recreant employers who prove themselves unworthy the safety assured them by the very men whom now they reject.