CALL TO ARMS

Taranaki Daily News, 10 November 1915, Page 4

CALL TO ARMS

RECRUITS AND THE TEST. MORE DOCTORS WANTED. THE NATIONAL REGISTER. Throe' men enlisted at Mr. A. B. (lib* son's recruiting office at New Plymouth yesterday. They are:— Charles Frederick Sole, laborer, Matnpu. Alfred Reginald Black, teamster, Awakino. Arthur Beale, sawmill hand, New Plymouth. Mr. Gibson states that several of the men who have registered to serve in the Army Service Corps, the Ambulance Corps, or the Miners Corps, have expressed a wish "that rather than be left out of the next reinforcements they should bo accepted for the infantry. •Their cases have been submitted to heiuUjuartors for consideration. A Pleas Association telegram from Wellington says;— The Prime Minister informed a reporter to-night that the law will certainly be set In operation against those persons who have failed to comply with the provisions of the National Registration Act. "The clauses of the Act are perfectly clear," he said. ''Those to whom the Act applies must comply with its requirements or take the consequences. We cannot allow any individual to shirk the responsibility of giving the information required." The necessity for more doctors to attend to recruits at New Plymouth was discussed at the meeting of the Patriotic Committee last night. Mr. J. R. Hill brought the matter up, and expressed the opinion that something should be done to make it easier for ' recruits to bo passed by a doctor as soon as they enlist, instead of being compelled to await the convenience of one particular doctor. (Mr. .T. E. Wilson thought that in view of the continual complaints from recruits at the delay in getting passed the Department might be asked to appoint another doctor to assist' Dr. Fookes. Mr. Hill said a recruit should bo able to go and be passed by the doctor as I soon as lie enlisted. Men may come thirty or forty miles to see the doctor and then fail to get an appointment, and this was not fair to them. He moved that, in view of the' complaints from recruits, the Department should be asked to increase the number of medical officers to carry out examinations. The motion was seconded by Mr, W. J. Chaney, and was carried."