THE RESERVISTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 March 1917, Page 5

THE RESERVISTS.

POSITION OF EXEMPTED MEN. (From Our Own Correspondent.) " Wellington, March 28. The announcement that a reservist has been drawn in the ballot docs not necessarily mean that the man will wear the uniform .of a member of the Expeditionary Force. If the military authorities want 100 recruits, they draw 300 names in order to provide a margin for medical rejections, exemptions and other "wastage." They assume that 200 of the men will not be" available for service, and this basis of calculation is understood to be proving roughly accurate in operation. This procedure was foreseen when the Military Service Act was being drafted, and, in order that there might lie no ground for any suspicion of carelessness or favoritism, provision was made for the publication in the Gazette of the names of men who might be summoned for service and then discharged or exempted. Clause 48 of the Act reads as foliows:—

Whenever, by reason of the allowance of an appeal by a (Military Service Board or by reason of medical unfitness or on any other ground whatever, a man has been discharged from the Expeditionary Force or exempted from foreign service at any time before he has served with that Force beyond the seas, his name, occupation, and abode shall forthwith be published by the commandant irf the Gazette, together with a statement of the ground on which he has been so discharged or exempted, ' 'S" The first list of names tinder this clause will be published in the near future, and subsequent lists will be pub* fished, as they become available. The effect will 'be to put the whole of the essential facts regarding each balloted man before the public in an official way. Every man whose name appears in a ballot list will be accounted for later either in a list of men entering camp or in one of the lists gazetted under clause 48. if the man has not been required to serve in the Forces, the reason will be stated in accordance with the provisions of the clause.

Clause 48 applies to balloted men only. The names of volunteers who may have been discharged from the Expeditionary Force within New Zealand for medical or, other reasons will not be included in the published lists. These men are still members of the Expeditionary Force Reserve, and so are J liable to be called up again when their names are .drawn in ths ballot, ' ' j