NATIONAL REGISTER

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 263, 28 July 1915, Page 4

NATIONAL REGISTER

ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRIES. ALL MEN TO REGISTER, BETWEEN 17 AND 55. MINISTER OF DEFENCE SAYS IT MUST COME. WELLINGTON, July 26. A deputation of Wellington citizens waited on the Minister for Defence (the Hon. Jas. Allen) this afternoon to urge the Government to prepare a national register of the men eligible for service and to ask the Imperial authorities to accept at arranged intervals double the number of men at present being sent. The committee which drafted the resolutions for presentation to the Minister was Messrs H. F. Yen Haast, G. R. Smith, J. Macintosh, and S. A. Atkinson Sir John Findlay was also present and mad e a strong appeal for an increase in the ■number of men to be sent.

The Minister, in reply, said

am entirely in sympathy with the idea, of a national register, and I go perhaps further than some cf you go. In my opinion a national register would be of comparatively little value unless it covered not merely the men who are fit for the firing line but the whole of th e labour of the country. (Hear, hear.) I have realised for a considerable time that a national register must com e sooner or later and I believe that before very long New’ Zealand will have to compile a register that will include everybody capable of serving either with the fighting forces or in connection wfith the industries. I do not say that the time has come yet.

Referring to th e organisation of industry for war purposes, Mr Allen said that he would very much like to see the industries of the Dominion organised with th e object of increasing the output and providing the articles required by the armies in the field at a reasonable cost. His own opinion was that there would have to be registration of everybody between the ages of 17 years and say 55, and a general effort to allot to every citizen his share in the national effort, either in the field or at home. My sympathies are with those who w r ant to make every possible effort at the present juncture, but, as Minister of Defence, I know, and you know in some degree now (the Minister referred to confidential information which he had divulged) that our efforts are limited by circumstances.