THE FIRST BALLOT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24403, 14 September 1940, Page 10

THE FIRST BALLOT

There will be a large measure of sympathy with the protest which a correspondent makes this morning against the intention of the Government, as disclosed by the Minister of National Service, to include, in the first ballot under the conscription system, the names of men who .have volunteered for service but have been rejected as medically unfit. Those who volunteered and were passed as fit have themselves a cause for complaint that their names are to be included in the register for national service without any indication that the exercise of compulsion was not required in their case. The practice during the Great War when the names were published of those who were being drafted was to place an asterisk before the names of the volunteers. The Minister of National Service has said that “it is not desired to make any distinction between those who have volunteered and those selected for- service by means of a ballot.” By whom this is desired, except by himself, was not stated by him. The general impression probably be that it is certainly undesirable that no distinction should be made. The Government itself was opposed to the introduction of conscription until it could no longer ignore the need for it, and fervent appeals were made by it for volunteers. It is not fair to those who responded to its call that they should now be treated as though they had not volunteered and that the stigma, as some may regard it, of having to be conscripted should be affixed to them by the authorities. The excuse which the Minister offers for the inclusion in the register of the names of men who volunteered but were rejected after examination 'by a Medical Board points clearly to a lack of the necessary co-opera-tion between Government departments. The Minister of National Service states that it would not be possible in the case of the first ballot to exclude men whom a Medical Board has already declared to be permanently unfit but that power has now been taken to exclude such men from subsequent ballots. If this is possible in subsequent ballots it surely should be possible in the first ballot. Otherwise an unjust discrimination will certainly be made. 1