GROWING MAN-POWER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 126, 27 April 1940, Page 10

GROWING MAN-POWER.

BRITISH ARMED FORCES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 25. The strength of man-power for the Imperial fighting services is already mounting high. Excluding those serving in the navy, marines, mercantile marine and R.A.F., the British Empire already has 2,000,000 men under arms, although those following occupations vital to the war effort have not been allowed to join the colours and many who volunteered for service have been returned to industry.

Despite compulsory army service being alien to the British tradition, the National Service Act -which extended the scope of the pre-war Military Training Act and made liable for service all men between 18 and 41 was welcomed by the whole country as a necessary part of the campaign against Nazi aggression. Neither can the importance of the Military Training Act, which became law in May, 1939, and for the first time in history introduced the principle of compulsory service in peace-time, be over-emphasised. This legislation laid the foundation for the raising of the new war armies and instituted orderly machinery for absorbing large numbers of new recruits, thereby avo’ding the dislocation both to vital industries and the fighting services themselves which was experienced in the earlier part of the last war.