RECRUITING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1513, 22 February 1916, Page 3

RECRUITING.

MR. W. H. FIELD’S VIEWS. The following letter has been received by the Mayor (Mr Alf. Fraser) from Mr W. H. Field, M.P. for Otaki “I have received the cones pondeuce of the Recruiting Board requesting my co operation with local bodies in my electorate to assist the new recruiting scheme. I write to say that 1 will be glad to combine my efforts with those of your Council if it is decided to actively assist in the Recruiting Board’s scheme. Personally, I am, as 1 have more than once announced publicly, in favour of compulsory service, and it is my opinion that compulsion will yet have to be resorted to throughout the Empire to bring the war to a victorious close. So long as war continues to be the only final method of settling differences between nations, it has always appeared to me to be absurd to expect any nation by the voluntary system to defeat an equally populated one working on the conscription system, and more particularly an unscrupulous and naturally warlike one imbued with unlimited lust for power and territory. Apart from this, it is wrong that the willing ones should go forth and give their lives while the unwilling ones should stay at home in comfort, and perhaps live under conditions of increased prosperity as the direct result of the war. Personally, 1 disbelieve that there are a large proportion of actual shirkers in our midst. I know of very many cases of men who would willingly go if the compulsory system was introduced. It is a thousand pities to my mind that there has not been compulsion throughout the Empire from the beginning, that there had not been also a complete organisation of our resources, so that every man should have his allotted task, those best fitted for it at the front, and the others manufacturing our war supplies, carrying on our industries, aud so forth. Both men and women are only too anxious to do their share. lam afraid that the Em pire has not yet fully realised that a war is in progress which threatens its very existence, and which I fear has not reached its gravest stage. As the Government wish it, I am while holding the above views, prepared with your Council and other local bodies, to give all the support 1 can to the Recruiting Board’s proposals.”

P.S. —Since the above was dictated I have learned that your Council has by resolution determined not to support the Recruiting Board’s scheme for the reason that a majority ol the Councillors think that there should be compulsion. Personally, I should favour giving the Board’s proposals what aid we can in the hope that the result might be as satisfactory as the Board appear to anticipate. FULL TRIAL FOR VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. Taihape, Feb. 21. The Taihape Borough Council unanimously adopted the following resolution: “ This council sympathises with the Recruiting Board’s eitorts to give voluntaryism a further trial, and offers to do what it can to carry out any suggestions made, having for its object the continuance of voluntary recruiting till that system is proved to be inadequate.”