MISSING RESERVISTS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 138, 6 March 1919, Page 6

MISSING RESERVISTS

INQUIRIES STILL' PROCEEDING,

A certain young man boasted in .1 public place recently tlint lie had been ."missed entirely" by the recruiting authorities. He had never been culled for scrvice, lie stated, and his name had never appeared in a ballot list or a Gazette. The case was reported.promplly to (lie rccriiiitmg authorities, aiid the subsequent examination of the records showed that the man had actually been twice rejected as C 2— unfit for active service. Apparently he would rather be regarded as a shirker

than as a medical reject. This case serves to illustrate one of the difficulties that have confronted the authorities in tracing "missing" reservists., Experience has shown that the man who boasts openly that he has evaded service is almost always misrepresenting the facts to his own disadvantage. It seems strange that this should be the ease* but investigation has shown again and ngjin that reservists who have been regarded by their neighbours as shirkers, on their own statements, have complied with the requirements of the' Military Service Act. The real shirkers do not talk about themselves. The number of men who actually succeeded in evading their military obligations and escaping the subsequent penalties cannot ba ascertained exactly, and. the authorities hesitate to give even an approximate estimate. The official figures show that about 3000 members of the reserve called by ballot were not brought before medical boards or accounted for inany other way. But there i? strong ground for believing that many of tho men represented by the names in the list of missing reservists are not shirkers at all. They are legitimately out of New Zealand,or they have been admitted to the forces, or rejected, with different addresses or slightly altered names. Carelessly filled forms, bad handwriting, and the abbreviation or dropping of Christian names have caused many a roan to appear twice in the Defence lists, which were based originally on the National "Register. f . Careful inquiry has eliminated many "missing" reservists; it has discovered tracts of some whose disapneaTanep looks suspicious, and it has brought to light and to punishment come actual shirkers. But the 3000 names mentioned above include many that stand unsupported by any evidence of genuineness that the Personal Services Branch has been able to gather. In the absence of evidence, the names mur>t be retained in the list of apparent defaulters.