THE RECRUITING SCHEME

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2743, 11 April 1916, Page 6

THE RECRUITING SCHEME

f NEED FOR GOOD ROLLS I MINISTER v-g^ ; EXPLM p.||BE CONSCRIPTION Mrf I ! ;■; Af. publio .-meeting convened. by. Jh< : Mayor to. sat tho j Government recruit }" irig; 'schemo" afoot '' in .Wellington"■:' ant 'suburbs, was held in the Council Chain- :, her last-njfiht.' About 150 people, won present;-..including 'about-50 returnee soldiers'.''The Mayor (Mi-.;J.-.P. Luke! presided! V' : / ,'..- ''? .:'.* ".'<'■ '",;."'':" ."'—-. . TheyiMayoi- said that the object ol the,meeting..was .to•-'put'recruiting hi ' AVollmgtoh Con'-a-proper .footing." Now we;;had:;gotto.tho-6aine position as. had - been reached'at.Home and in 'other Dominions, for tlie supplies of men were approaching- exhaustion. At ; Homo the .'-Government- had decided -for -compuldetermined; at all costs,to see the 'war through.'' In Now Zealand from tlie : outset we had declared that wo would ,not\withhold.our men if thero was need of; men.. Ho ..was sure he' was voicing ■f.ho .opinion. of; the people \ of Wellington When. he said the country should ■ adopt compulsion.- ;' (Applause.) This :had always.been his own. opinion, and he had often expressed it. But because thero was no "provision---on. tlw> .Statute /Book for compulsion, and because we Could.not afford to mark time, ■the meeting was being held.to go on Uvith tho-Voluntary 6ystem. *• Thero was Vai shortage,of. men for the-Reinforce-i< riients, and those.-who believed hi the f voluntary system could not do that sys- !- tem.better service than- by using-their f" influence to persuade young.men to en-list;"-He 'would' appeal to all present (to doallthey could-to help to make up j the.shortagea, : .so, that. the. ReinforceI me tits "mightVleave-'f Or' the!,fr6nt: at 1 full :; Bcrerigth. 'vAh-',appeal';would,'be. mado.'to [■.returned,-. soldiers• to ; -hclp in -the vworki-(-/Also* '■■ the Women's -National ' Reserve 'iwould.'.h'o -asked to.- undertake some-of, j -tho.;.w6»k'.'of checking,'arid-- completing i: the',-Tollsi'-,: v The-National Reserve:would, j' bo : asked ,to help, -and ho.-,believed' this !'• inew;'. activity .".would make', the National t. a!jiv.e ■ and useful .body.' i.TheVrplls. were.';now,',; being purged",by j; the'ipefence Department- for, tho- purpose {:, of Cih'e.; canvass, by-thei removal, frohi. j thehi','of 'the."names', of .ina-rried, men," i-niid;-men with-dependents, 'who (ought, i hoi to-bo asked -to'-goJ ; Hfi ttodW ask vjall to sink their-personal opinions, .and i'.to; make the meeting,ono of uuityVand, !' to, unite' afterwards: to carry , on.'.; the ■ '.work ■--■■■■■•'". i ;'--'-- ';'- ■ ■■-■■■■ ■ .-..:,•'.-. [;'■'-■',': -''■ Sink,our Differences.! . ' I The Hon. J. ; Allen was received with ■■;'cheers...-.' He said -he ithoronghly en- }; dorsed everything the Mayor had said — ■; that we should sink our differences and i'settle dwn to the work of getting re- [ emits, by. whatever method was ayail- {-' able. The question of compulsion would f. be dealt with by the House when.i* [-, met in a-few weeks. 3ut.no scheme of j'. cdtnpulsion '.could J be, ,'brought ,'in ' satis-" factorily. unless we had-a more or.'.lsss i : perfect.roll..of the men of military ago. j in ,tho Dominion; Tlie National Rer gister.-^was very incomplete, and very [.'■ jmperfeet. The>. Government had 6ome I little information about the number who j. had not signed; He could not say that i ■the-infqnuatiqii was ;accurate,jbut from had come to them !;; they had good reason to believe thero ;; were some thousands of men.; who .'had I not signed the National Registration' i. cards. Hedid not know why these,- ; menLwli9<!_.not signed. Perhaps "they liad [ tlieir own,good.roason.Jiut.it was per-, j fectly plain, that unless? they could' ' secure the names of the men'who had I not signed.the Register,. ■■ compulsion i Bould never be,enforced.' If. these hapi'ipened to belong' to -tho, class of men [.. who wanted to shirk, then unless they j- could get the names- and piit them' on 'the.roll they'would have, every oppOrJ tunity of shirking in the future. -One, \ of the great objects of, asking the van- ! ous local authorities to take the Nal ,tiona_l Register, and complete .tho. rolls <:was in order that they might be nsed r under the .compulsory system : later if ; necessary. Without this we might nover [he able to reach the men who wished ! to continue to ishirk. This was the I .reason-why the Government asked the j ■ looal bodies to undertake- this 'lousejr. to-house inquiry and canvass. An Unpleasant Task, Perhaps. i v'-. This was perhaps, unpleasant and unj satisfactory work, but some local bodies ■ ; were: doing, it, and those who hadun- ;-• (lortaken it had not after all found thai ! It was. so very impleasant; But even if ; it were unpleasant, what, then P Jt was j-.;thp work that lay to the hands of'the j ii)an of-non-military age,' and of tho :,'. man of military age who could not go i. to tho front because they were exempt-' ; ed. It was the little bit that theso [. men could put in to assist Neiv Zealand i and 'tho' 'Empire in this time of need ; Our soldiers had volunteered and gone I.- to- the front. Did anybody think it ; was pleasant for our soldiers to leave ! their comfprtable homes and face the I discomfort and\danger of the trenches j lor us? The lime had com© when the r method of personal canvass must bo i tried. He would suggest that this was I work m -which the National "Reserve j- could well take part: The rolls must !' bo prepared if ever compulsion was to I .-bo-successfully established, and it could I bo done only by house to house canvass r 'l'or a closely contested Mayoral elec i- tion the town.would.be^divided:up into I areas, voters would be canvassed,. arid ; i even conveyed to the- poll.. If 'this" j oould' be dono for an ordinary election ; how much moro should be done when [ the issue at, stake was the safety of i our country, tho safety of the Empire 1 Already it had been tried in othei ' towns with good results. From one | city, thero. had been returned to "Well- ;■ ington no fewer than 1500 recruiting ; cards, and that city had the smallest , shortage for the 15th Reinforcements, ! The canvass there had proved its value. ! and he believed that if wo took up the \ same scheme hero the 6aineTesults would i acc.nui.- - j: Not the Returned Soldier's Job. I Some said tho returned soldier should ! dojthis work of canVassing. His own i opinion was that the returned soldiers I had done a great deal already, and lie ; did not think it wos fair for us who '• had been Jiving here in comfort at Uhome, who had not been wounded, who ' had not been returned sick, to ask i them to do work that we ourselves should : do. AA'o must come out of our comforti able hmes, and put up with a little inconvenience and get out and do. this job:. Ho recognised to the full tho value ,-• of: platform work, and he recognised the value of the work already dono by : Captain Barclay and his committee. ; But the time had come now for efforts '■ of;'another kind. He hoped that the : • orgsnisation to besot up in Wellington would'prove by "its results to bo" en- ; tifely successful. Men Who are "Lost." Dr. Newman, M.P., said that there ' remained little more to be said on. the ; general question before the meeting. But he wished to say that the authorities might--do something.', to'.''-make : things easier for the man without means who'wanted to go into camp at ; once. Nowadays detachments were ! sent away every four weeks, and _ he .'thought that if men wanted to go into camp -before the due date they should be received. In Wellington we were ■ said to be 64 men short, but the fact'

was that sufficient men had been ei listed, but that they had been sent on on publio works in tho meantime. Till loss. could be saved if the men wer allowed to go into camp as soon as the. registered. Under these circumstance he' protested against tho doelaratioi that'AVollington was short in its quota In actual fact the figures for tho las : six months showed that Wellington hai done remarkably well, better than an; , ; ; other town in Now Zealand. Thi ' truth of the matter was that Welling ton was now "running a bit dry.' . Also, iii spite of what the Minister said ' there were a great many. people win ;' had an objection to canvassing, am this was why tho meeting was not larger x "Don't Know What War Is." , Captain Barclay was also chcorec > when he stood up to speak. Tho Min- •. ister, he said, had stressed the need I" for a purged.roll. For his part he ■■ wanted mbn, and ho wanted men be- '" cause wo needed them to win tho war. Ho did not like the word "shirker." ■ ;flo nevor used it, and he did not be- ■■' iliove that men really ■ shirked. The : y .truth of the matter was that we wore k :uncoininon!y comfortable here, and we 'did not know what war was. Many ' 'were doing better in business than ever beforehand usually it was the man who was doing very well in business who said: ■ "Let's have and then there can be.no doubt about it."' Tho time was come now when we must quit talking patriotism, and begin to act it. To Mr. Allen he wished to say one i thing—that we had lost, hundreds of men because we'had no hold-of them after they registered. He believed we should send men into camp as soon as they were enlisted. That day he had registered eleven, keon men, and fiv had asked to be sent to camp at once. Wellington was short for the last Reinforcements, and ho was at a loss to understand how it had occurred. More than 1 enough men had been registered to fill the quota, but the meii were not there when called. They had gone. He did not know where they had gone, but they had been lost meantime.' He would ask Mr. Allen to take another view of the circumstances, and to encourage the committee in the hope that men • would be sent into camp as soon as they enlisted, if they ■ so wished. The : reason why we had - now to appeal to young ..men fight ! was that our nation was not a military : nation, and the reason for this was that our country had never been invaded. Every Frenchman was a soldier because his country bad suffered from the awful ' curse of invasion. Captain Barclay ■ moved, that, the districts into which the city, shoiild he divided for the purposes of- efficient canvass be the\ school districts. . Dr.- Newman], seconded the motion, which was carried without discussion. Tho Mayor sSiibmitted a list of conveners Tor the several districts, whose duties.it would be to organise sub-com- ; mittees to carry on the canvass. This list was approved. .At the Mayor's suggestion it was agreed that public meetings should be held in all the,schools on April 19 nest. . \ "Straight for, National Service." ■ The Mayor their moved that returned soldiers be asked to assist in the recruiting canvass.' Captain Donald Simson' said he wished to speak to this motion, as representing the returned soldiers, who com-' prised; about a third of the audience. 'Ho'.wished.to say that if tho Govern- ■ ment would bring in a fair form of compulsion, he would'undertake, on behalf of the returned soldiers, that they would co-operate in the scheme. He declared that the present system of'recruiting had failed, and that the scheme proposed iras no more.thah "a shirking form of; compulsion—compulsion of'the worst_ kind." ' It only compelled the sensitive, half-fit young man to 'come forward'and make a sacrifice either by neglecting his dependents or making considerable personal loss. '-It hit the man who came in contact with the public, who .; could not stand .the taunts and . criticisms now in evidence, :but it: did not get at the man who was shirking his duty, and who- would ignore all appeals. .The,present system had failed and would fail.-. It was ■ a farce.. It was unfair and unjust. He appealed to the meeting to drop the unfair _ form of moral compulsion and go straight for national service. No unfair form of compulsion could pass through Parliament, and if it did it could never be enforced, because no compulsory service law could be . enforced in-New Zealand unless it had the support of the people. "If you want to practise compulsory service during war time," he said, "don't allow the mail- steamers to be hung up by disputes with, firemen. If the shipping companies are wrong, compel them to do what's- right. 1 If they are right, and the-firemen are wrong, get soldiers to do'Mi'e.-job'. They will do it. This is war. time. . You must have a war policy.;' (Applause.) Returned soldiers, about-whose loyalty -there could bo no question, would canvass to-morrow if they thought the canvass '.-had any chance of success, but they would not back a rotten system that was bound to fail, i '• 4 Fair. Schemo. A National Service Bill should bo passed, claiming single men with no dependents first; nest, single men with dependents, provided for on a living wage basis, both while in camp an 3 away; and, next, married men with dependents, also provided for, and a Pension Act by right. The married men should be taken in this order:— First, those who married since the' war bogan, next, the man who had no family, and ,n'ext those with families, of one,or two,' and so on. The.-wealthy married man. who could leave his wife mid family well provided for could be trusted to come forward with the single men. Perhaps ho would not, but heat any rate oould bo canvassed. If proper, legislation were passed, the returned soldiers would back it up with more.than, words. The country was crying out for conscription on a: just basis. It was crying "out for taxation similar to that.imposed in England on war profits, shipping companies, and 0 Am m ° n <W>lios. (Applause.) To-day in New Zealand you have twenty thousand physically fit, willing to go, ' he said, "but they are financially unfit. You are prosperous: you can provide. ..-Can you ask these men to go forward if you don't provide, on a lair.basis? Don't'scrape around for boys who can just pass the medical tost, because they are cheaper. Economy in lives you must practise, not economy m money. Only fit men will win this war, and only fit men wil' return again as citizens." (Loud applause.) L .. What the Country Thinks. Mr. A. Jolly said he could not support a motion to ask men who had been at the front to assist in purging the National Register taken of those who had stayed at home. Tho motion was unfair and unjust in its conception, and it would be unfair and unjust m its working. He had just completed a tour of three and a half months into all parts of tho South Island, and.in all that tour he had never met one man who had any opinion but that the time had passed for us to rely on the voluntary system,' and that it was time for us to 'go on with something else. (Applause.) He had met with one case furnishing a strong argument for compulsion—a family of nine men, all of military age, all physically fit, and all without a single financial reason for not enlisting. None of tho nine had gone.. None of them intended to go. They..'could not be obtained by recruiting meetings. They would bo obtained by one method alone—by compulsion. As for the unembarrassed" meii who had to be brought in by brass bands, stump orators, and such moans, all he could say about them was that they were past praying for. Tho only, opponent of Captain Sim-

son's proposition in favour of compulsjou was a returned soldier, Mr. B. J. Seal. He said that, he would willingly help, without pay of any sort, with tlio voluntary ' system, • but ho would not, help if conscription .wore introduced, because ho did not beliovo in it. His remarks did not meet with the approval of the other soldiers, who appeared to bo conscriptionists to a man. It was agreed elso that the Men's National Reserve be asked to help with the _ canvass, and that the AYomen's National Reserve bo asked to undortako certain other work which they could do. It was resolved that all present agree to givo their names to tho convenors of the committees for which they might desiro to work..

,- Mr. A»cn Repnea. The 'Hon. J. Allen replied to somv of the speeches made. Tho complaint bad been made, he said, that men could not be received into camp. But thero was now a shortage of infantry for tho last draft, and any fit man who wished could, bo taken into camp at once. Did the difficulty arise because men for other branches wanted to go into camp now? If so, then ho wished to say perfectly plainly that they could not be taken in at onco. There were enough men registered for the Artillery in "Wellington to supply tho quota for the nexi twelve months. A soldier: They don't want to go until tlie 'next war I Mr. Allen:'Do you say wo should take these men into camp and keep them thero and pay them all that time ? Dr. Newman: AYe don't ask anything so absurd. Mr. Allen repeated that any man who wanted to get into camp could register for the Infantry and he would be taken in. He rather thought these complaints had their origin in a disposition on tho part of many to shift tho responsibility from their own shoulders. But we must all take up and carry our share of responsibility. The "Lost" Men. He referred next to the statement about "lost" mon v How many men were lost? he asked! Not a man could get out of New Zealand without a permit or a passport, and men could be lost only if we failed, in our duty to - carry out the recruiting echeme as devised by the Government. If every soul in New Zealand would set himself to the task of making and keeping tho record of the' available men, no man icould he lost. This was one of tho reasons why, the Recruiting Board wanted the scheme carried out in itd entirety. He had heard of this difficulty occurring before—in Christchurch. He had had the lists there investigated. Ho was not yet prepared to say whether men had actually been lost;, but it had already been discovered that several men had enlisted under false names, and others had given entirely wrong ad. dresses. If. the canvass were thoroughly done these men could bo followed. Tha rolls must confcaini not only tho names of tho singlo men, but of tho married men of military age, with particulars as to the number of their dependents—this to enable a proper classi. fication to be made. i . Not a Failure Yet. _ "I want to say a. word about compuh sion," said Mr. Allen. "I don't wish to air my own opinions about compulsion. Probably they are known. I want to say perfectly straight that,the man who says voluntaryism has been a failure is not saying what I believe to bu accurate. ', Fifty thousand men, 5 per cent, of our population, have enlisted under ■ the voluntary system. There is no othor country, outside of the Mother Country, that has done anything liko it."

A Soldier: What about the shortage in the Reinforcements?

Mr. Allen: "I have my own opinions about compulsion and voluntaryism, and I sacrificed my own opinions in the interests of the community and tho interests of tho show. But to say that the voluntary system has failed is not accurate, and to say it is a failure at the present time is maceurate. AAHioro they are testing this schemo of the Recruiting Board thoroughly there has been an enormous improvement in recruiting for tho 15th Reinforcement's. The 16th Reinforcements in some places are very nearly in hand now. That happens in places where tha Government scheme has been thoroughly tested and tried. You ■ can't, thereto -e, say the' voluncary system is a failvra yet. All you ara t.oked to dj in connection with these rolls is in preparation for either s-jhe.na. Put asi'e your opinions as I have put mine. Work tinder the -sytfem which is the only system we have, and. the' eiiiy ono wo can have rntil anjther can l;o introduced by legislation when Parliament_ meets. ' Ho concluded hy expressing the -hopi tha'., although he believed in conscription, New Zealand would find all tho men she was required to find by the volanVary system. .ky>plause.)

The meeting ended with the ring'ng of the National Anthem.

An 'offer of 15 per cent, discount (3s. In the £,) is made to soldiers and their friends by A. E. M. Rowland, tho Public Service Jeweller, 90 Manners Street—Advt.