WELLINGTON NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 303, 1 June 1915, Page 3

WELLINGTON NOTES.

MORE MEN. (From Our Own Correspondent). Wellington, Last Night. ■A curious feature of the recruiting lig- . ilivs 7s the variation in tin;"proportion of'medical rejects in the various centres. The other day llti men presented themselves for examination by the doctors in Auckland, and SI were passed as lit for service. About the same time 113 men came, forward for examination at Christchurch, and only 41 were passed, :a being declared temporarily unlit and 41 rejected. The men adjudged to be temporarily unlit may present themselves for examination at a later date, and in some of the cases,all that was required on the part of the would-be. recruit was a visit to the dentist. Rut these figures, and others that cwitld he Ipioted, suggest that the standard set hv the examining doctors, is not uniform, and the matter lias been receiving the attention of the, .Minister of Defence with the object of ascertaining whether or not particular districts are sullcriiig an injustice, on account of the special severity of the medical men. Obviously it is not desirable that the examiners should be over-exacting at a time when the Dominion needs additional recruits rather badly. The standard of fitness among the men in training at Trentham camp must he maintained, hut it does not seem reasonable that men should he turned down on account of some minor defects that could he remedied by tho medical and dental stafT at the camp. A certain amount of wastage takes l'lace at Trentham in any case, the severe demands made upon the physique of the men discovering weak points and rcvea'lig troubles that the men themselves may not have suspected. The fai>- thing would seem to he to give the recruits a chance to prove their mettle at the cam]) unless their unfitness for service Is definitely established at the medical examination.

CONSCRIPTION NOT AX IMPOSSIBILITY.

Is the Defence Department getting the rucruits as fast as it needs them'; The Minister of .Defence savs now that it is. The "big effort" has been made by the enlistment of the 2500 men required tor the additional expeditionary force, anu all that remains now is to maintain the regular drafts of reinforcements, at the rate, taking into account the new iorce, pi something like 1200 a month. But undoubtedly there exists in some quarters an uneasy suspicion that the men o; the Dominion are not taking as large a shave as they should in the terrible task that confronts the Empire. At the end .of this month New Zealand jvill have at the .front and in training approximately 24,000 men, or roughly 21 per thousand of the population. The Mother Country has done very much better than that, despite the fact that she is producing all the munitions used by the armies in the' field, supplying large quantities of munitions to her Allies and maintaining the licet at sea. The cablegrams describing the demands tfmt mre being made in Great Britain for the adoption of conscription are being read with keen interest by some of the Dominion's public men, and it is fairly certain that if the war does not progress more favorably during the next few months than it has done in the early part of this year a serious demand will be raised for the extension of New Zealand's military activities. Theoretically the Dominion has in operation a system of universal military service. 11l practice the Dominion, ollieially speaking, is doing nothing to train the men who are unable to go to the front or who are not required to go there under the existing arrangements. The advocates of increased ell'ort admit at once that the 'Dominion must not he stripped of men, since it has a vitally important duty to perform in the supplying of foodstull's to the Motherland. Hut the moral ell'ect of a serious attempt to organise all the able-bodied men of the Dominion on territorial lines would be important, and the Dominion has to face the fact that the end of th" war is not yet in sight. It is conceivable that tile struggle may drag on for two years yet, and in that event the Empire as a whole may be required to make sacrifices that have hardly lieeii considered up to the present time. Apparently : New Zealand's leading public men are I not yet ready to talk along these lines, hut public omnion tends to run ahead of th« politicians in these times. The country's response would not he in doubt for a moment if the Government declared "national service to be nccc-vary. \ THE i;y-ki,ectioxs. The by-elections which under normal conditions would lie holding the attention of the whole country are being fought in comparative obscurity. Neither party is leaving any stone unturned in order to secure the victory, but neither party wants to be accused of raising party issues unnecessarily. Sir Joseph Ward is still in the North, and one gathers that the Liberals in the Bay of Islands a> - c in very gooil heart and confident that they are going to poll exceedingly well. The seat, it has to be remembered, was a Liberal one until Mr. Vernon Reed carried it with him to the Reform side of the House. Mr. Massey says that he is not going to interfere personally if he can help it, but he has an active lieutenant in the field in the person of the Minister of .Insti-'", and he is going north himself to-mjr-row nominally to open a bridge and ittend a show, but probably with Vie intention also of getting a closer view of the election contests. Reports from Taumarunui favor the Liberal candidate, whose organisation will lie much better than it was in December, when he won 'with a Fairlv substantial margin. The Taumarunui Liberals, it may lie remembered, are convinced that they have a substantial grievance in connection with the refusal of the Prime Minister to appoint a new returning officer for the electorate, especially s\s the Electoral Department has admitted the need for some change by sending the deputy chief electoral officer to co-operate in supervising the election, but neither side is wasting much time in discussing grievances. They are busy in the pursuit of votes.