CONSCRIPTION BALLOT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3566, 28 September 1916, Page 3

CONSCRIPTION BALLOT.

STATE OF THE ROLL.

BIG- PERCENTAGE OF UNFITS

WELLIxMGTON, September 27. The Government Statistician has no doubt now that his task of enrolling the Expeditionary Force will be suffi- j cicntly well in hand by the end of October to permit of a conscription ballot being taken then. There, is no longer very much doubt that such a ballot will be necessary. The roll at that date will be by'no means faultless. From njost points of view its serious defect-wall he> the ab~, senco from it' of a,'number of names! that it should contain,, Ifc is impossible now to hazard an estimate of what that number will" be. From the point of view of the officers conducting the ballot a still more embarrassing feature of the roll will bo the presence of hosts of names that might, not to be there. Everybody's tho. halt, lame, or blind, must enrol.' -Many maimed and otherwise obviously unfit men are enrolled. At present all that the enrolling officer knows is that a certain' , of 'Auckland; who is of military :ige, says he is blind, or that , of somewhere else, says he has only one log. It would", nob be safe for the Statistician to acivi always on the particulars in tho schedules and discharge these nanies from the roll. /Enquiry |will have to be. made into these cases," and if the particulars are, proved to be correct, the Commandant and the Statistician have power to delete the names. ' Meantime the roll remains "stuffed:"* Tt cannot possibly be purged before thefirst ballot, and perhaps not before illc second ballot. The percentage of mints will be very high; it may even be necessary to ballot for 4000 men to- b^, sure of s-ettine: 2000 fits to serve..