The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, AUGUST 11th, 1916. MILITARY COMPULSION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 11 August 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, AUGUST 11th, 1916. MILITARY COMPULSION.

(With which is incorporated The Tal hape Post and Waimarino News.)

A message from the Chairman of the Recruiting Board, which arrived just before going to press yesterday, is strongly commended to the attention of all eligible young men who ought to have enlisted and haven’t. It represents about the last warning) these young men will have of either being among the “wents” or “sents.” Now they cab enlist with all the honour and kudos which attaches to voluntary enlistment; shortly they will have earned all the opprobrium of compulsion. Go they must, and as a few days may make all the difference to their standing for the rest of their lives, the matter is worthy of their immediate consideration. Before the passing of the Military Service Act, a day or two ago, there was no legamachinery to compel anyone upon whom the moral obligation to go. had not the slightest effect, but that defect in our enlistment system has been effectually remedied, and the Prime Minister tells us that machinery is to be put in motio i at the earliest possible moment. The military districts were defined a fortnight ago. and the Military Board tire now being appointed. So soon as these Boards are Gazetted, all cases of shirking are to be, says Mr. Massey, the Board’s first business. It seems that the eligible young man’s time for voluntary enlistment is becoming very limited, and it may be that the Military Boards aie even now about ready to commence their duties. Then tlnme are men who, thinking to escape by disobeying the order to register, issued under the provisions of the Census Act. have already broken the law and have earned the statutory punishment. Those young men have been the subject of a good deal of discussion during the ’ate parliamentary session. Jt is stupid of anyone to suppose that ho will be permitted to delibonite’y break statute law and go unpunished. If thorn i Mx> any such in this district dry are strongly advised to do < ne right and honourable thing at once in an interview with Sergeant-Major Tuckey. If compulsion has to apply in such ctoes it may be not cmy Inc oppvctrm n lor shirking or cowardice, but that in addition a form of punishment will be inflicted that will prove distinctly disadvantageous. No one need now approach eligibles in a hunting spirit, be-

cause all have to enlist; our desire in referring to the question at all is to see every man shoulder his responsibilities to his country voluntarily and all the honours and privileges that voluntary enlistment confers. The Prime Minister’s last words on the subject before Parliament adjourned were: “I can assure the Member that men who neglected to place their names on the rolls in accordance with the provisions of the Census Act, are all being looked after, and they will have to take the consequences.”