COMPULSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1916, Page 4

COMPULSION.

Compulsory enlistment under the Military Service Act will not operate in any district that sends its full monthly .quota of recruits jnto camp under the voluntary system, according to the latest statements made on the subject by the Recruiting Board. Volunteers will continue to be accepted from both divisions of the Expeditionary Force Reserve, comprising all men of military age, but i£ a district fails to supply its quota, and conscription becomes necessary, the men required to cover the shortage will be drawn from the First Division, that if, from the single men. This arrangement follows the line of least resistance, and it ought to convince the opponents of conscription that the Government is in no hurry to abandon voluntaryism. The quotas are assessed on the number of men of military age in each of the military districts, as disclosed by the National Register, and most of the dis'tricta have been finding the required number of men and something over. The districts that have shown themselves laggardly can avoid conscription now if they choose to make the necessary effort. But the arrangements has one important disadvantage, since it is not free J from the unfairness tha.t characterises the voluntary system in the present crisis. The real shirkers, bo they few or many, among the single men without dependents, will have another chance to shield themselves behind the patriotism of the men who will, make heavy domestic and business sacrifices in order to answer the call for volunteers. The effect of the Military Service Act upon volunteering has yet to be made clear. Members of the Recruiting Board quote the precedent of President Lincoln's conscription law at the time of the American Civil War, when the threat of compulsion filled the ranks of the Union armies with volunteers. But recruiting in some centres, like Wellington City, at anv niii l , has shown a substantial decline since the Act reached the Statute Boo!;, and some of the recruiting committees are saying that they cannot urge men to volunteer when the Government has power to summon the .various Bvoiißs in just sequence,