THE SECOND DIVISION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3005, 16 February 1917, Page 5

THE SECOND DIVISION

MARRIED MEN'S TURN ' APPROACHING. The number of fit men available for service among the remaining lleservists of the First Division cannot be gauged ■with but tho Defence authorities have indicated already that the first call upon the Second Division (the married men) is likely to bo made about live months hence.' The adoption of a vigorous combing-out policy in exempted trades and Government Departments might out back the date a month, but it does not appear likely that the Second Division-men can he kept out of. the ballot after August next in any case. •Tho men enrolled in tho Second Division are being classified according to the size of their families, and it Jius been'suggested, though no official statement has been made on tho point, that they will be balloted by classes, the men without children first, then the men with ono child each, the men with two children, and so on. Perhaps tho men without children and the men with one child will form a group. The size of these classes is not indicated at all clearly in the available statistics, and •calculations aro subject to several disturbing factors, such as the voluntary 'eulistment of married men during the Hast thirty months, and tho placing of men married sinco April, 1915, in the First Division. . But it appears that there aro from 8000 to _10,000 men of military ago married without children available ior the ballot, and the number may prove larger. The number of married men with ono child should exceed 15,000, and probably there are at least, as many men in the next group, the men with two children. The military medical authorities are disposed to.believe, from the evidence already before them, that the proportion of rejections among balloted marTied men will bo much smaller than • among balloted single men. The First Division had provided more than 50,000 fit recruits before balloting commenced, and the fine response of the volunteers naturally lowered the- physical average of the division, which still contained all the men who had been rejected under the voluntary systoni. The exhaustion of the First Division will bo completed over the_ whole Dominion before any Second Division men are drawn. This is likely to entail the temporary suspension of the quota system, since the districts will not all fiuish their First Division men in the same month. Districts: in which vol--1 untary. recruiting has been particularly good "may escape ono ballot, or even 'two ballots, while tho'remaining First Division men are being drawn in other ' districts. All parts of the, country will Ktarfc level in dealing with tho married men.