BUILDING AN ARMY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 1, 9 January 1942, Page 4

BUILDING AN ARMY

THE gazette to be issued on January 20th will, we are informed contain the names of 27,000 married men without children between the ages of 18 and 46 who will be eligible for service while the Pacific crisis remains at its height. It is estimated that there are probably nearer 30,000 reservists in this division, several thousand of whom have already joined the Royal New Zealand Navy, the Expeditionary Force, or the Air Force. In view of these facts it can be safely anticipated that married men with families over 24 years of age, will be called up also in the near future owing to the gravity of the Japanese threat, and the growing danger of possible emergency. There is every reason to believe that the Government has been instructed to call up all fit men a,t the greatest possible speed. The position is that should the gazetted list realise 20„000 men for immediate camp, the next step will be those between the ages of 18 to 24 years irrespective of children. In this class there are probably from 6000 to 10,000 reservists some of who are childless and will therefore be called up in the first ballot. These limitations will undoubtedly hasten the drawing of the older married men with families and the following estimate of the relative strength of these classes is of interest. Married men between 18-45 with 1 child 39,000 Married men between 18-45 with 2 children 34,000 Married men between 18-45 with 3 children 20,000 From the above it will be seen that the possibilities of building up a new regular army of 100,000 men for the defence of New Zealand is well within sight, but the withdrawal of such a huge percentage of manpower from industry with comparatively no notice, will have a most crippling effect upon the country generally. The only alternative that presents itself is that the country's womenpower be also conscripted in order to replace the men who have been dra.wn into the army. Such measures have been forced upon the people of Britain, and it looks very ! much as though the countries of the South Pacific must do the. same, while the threat of invasion hangs over them.