THE CALL ON THE DOMINION'S MAN-POWER

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 252, 18 July 1919, Page 12

THE CALL ON THE DOMINION'S MAN-POWER

VOLUNTEERS AND CONSCRIPTS When the British Empire entered tho Great War in support of liberty and the rights of small nations, Now Zealand's participation was characterised by the keenest competition among its men to secure a place in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The announcement that the Imperial Government had accepted on August 12, 1914, tho New Zealand Government's offer of tho Expeditionary Forco was greeted by such a rush of recruits that the Defence Department wa.' faced with the greatest difficulty in allotting places to eager applicants. Not only was the establishment of the Main Body filled, but, very shortly after the declaration of war, the Department had in view a supply of recruits sufficient, for a considerable numbers of reinforcements ahead. All that the 'Department's officers had to do was to record the names and addresses of tho applicants; arrange their medical examination, and forward the fit men to camp in accordance with tho quota allotted to each group in the Dominion. Tho re-

and that the first call should rightly be answered by the men with littlo or no responsibilities.

It had been realised for some time that tho majority of the recruits obtained wore men that the Dominion could illation! lo spare, whilo single men with fewer responsibilities were still available to fill tho ranks of the reinforcements. Complaints that single men wero shirking their duly became numerous, and there is little doubt that the people of New Zealand realised that a .system of compulsory service (whereby men with thp fewest responsibilities were called on to servo) was preferable to the then existing system which permitted men with large families to volunteer and brought no measure of compulsion to tho single man who had not yet offered himself for service. Unfortunately, these single, men were not few and far between, and. in some eases, consisted of nil the single sons of the family, not one, of. whom had offered to serve the Empire in its struggle for liberty. When, it was decided to introduce'the Military Service Act. provision was accordingly made to deal with these families of single men,in an adequate manner. Compulsion Foreseen. The Government of New .Zealand had foreseen that the application of compulsion in regard to recruiting for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force would have to come within the range of practical politics if the war continued for any

of the Military' Sel'vico Act, no new .scheme of voluntary recruiting was taken into consideration. The existing shortage in recruits increased with tho dispatch of every draft to camp, and it became apparent at an early date that tho enforcement of the compulsory clauses of the Act would have to be accelerated as much as. possible. The First Ballot. With the announcement that a ballot would be drawn in November, 1916, there was an instant increase in .voluntary recruiting. Prior to the taking of the ballot, however, section 35 of the Militarv Service Act was put into operation. This section, known throughout New Zealand as the "family shirker clause," provided that, if the Minister of Defence were satislied that two or more single brothers of military age in any family wero not permanently unfit for military service, he might call upon them to show cause, before a military service board, why they should not be called up for service with tho Expeditionary Force. In applying this section of the Act it was decided that the section should apply only to those families none of whose sons of military age had volunteered for active service abroad. It was also decided that men who had volunteered, perhaps in tho early stages of the war, and who were rejected as permanently or tompo::aril.v medically unfit, or who had been precluded from service by the granting of exemption by the Hon. the Minister in Charge of Munitions and Supplies,