MILITARY SERVICE.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1917, Page 7

MILITARY SERVICE.

WOU KING OF THE COMm.SOBY SYSTEM. (From Our Own Correspondent). Wellington, March 2!). When tlip compulsory clauses of the Military Service Act were being put into operation, the recruiting authorities had to frame an estimate of the proportion of fit. eligible men. available for service, to be found in any given number of reservists Selected, by the chance c.f the ballot. They decided to begin woik upon an .assumption that one-third of the men drawn in the ballot would be found available for inclusion in the Expeditionary Forces, and at each successive drawing they have provided the margin hv calling up three times the number of men actually required as recruits. The figures that are becoming available as the Military Service Boards and the Medical Boards proceed with their work and the draftß of recruit? enter camp indicate that the basis of calculation was approximately correct. Just about one-third of the balloted men are finding their way into the camps, the, balance being accounted for by medical. rejections, exemptions, and other less important causes. The wcAk point in the scheme, in its early stages, was t'hat sufficient allowance had not been made for the delays that would take place in getting the fit ■balloted men into camp. The shortage of recruits in training would have disappeared quickly if a full third of the men drawn in each ballot, had mobilised within a month of the drawing. The proportion of reservists.who actually become available for service in t'lie tim>; , originally allowed was very much'

smaller, and even now,with extra Military Service Boards and Medical Boaxda at work and with an expanded recruiting organisation to direct affairs, delays are unavoidable. But this trouble is not cumulative. The stream of recruits tends to reach normal dimensions, as delayed men from the early ballot 3 make their appearance at the Mobilising centres. Drafts are entering the camps each and though the shortage has not yet been viped out, t'lie prospects may be regarded as satisfactory. The attitude of New Zealand's balloted men, generally speaking, leaves little ground for reproach. The vast majority of the men accept/ the position with apparent Many of them exercise their privilege of appealing, and support their appeals for exemption or 9uE.per.sion ; by all the arguments at their disposal, but they appear ready enough to accept the decioicna of the Boards in the end. 'Reservists whose appeals have been dismissed are entering the camps and taking up their training with the other recruits. There is a small residue of men unaccounted for in each ballot list, but it is impossible to know yet what proportion of these men are actual resisters or shirkers. Failure to answer the call may mean that the reservist concerned has not received his notice, owing to change of address; that there has been a mistake with regard to his name, or even that he is already in the Expeditionary Force. Arrests and prosecutions are authorised as evidence becomes available justifying them, but the "washing out" of the small remnant of actual defaulters .may prove a slow business.

When the compulsory system began to operate, the rules governing the medical examination of recruits were relaxed to the extent of admitting to camp balloted men whose fitness might be'regarded as in some degree doubtful. It was felt by the authorities that if a reservist had been drawn in the ballot, he should be put into training if there appeared to be any chance at all of his making good. This arrangement in practice has not proved profitable. The training both in New Zealand and in the bases nearer tße firing line is so severe that it is certain to discover weak points, and the medical standard, therefore, lias been tightened again. Experience has shown, it may be mentioned, that the balloted men as a body are not trying to evade service by misleading the Medical Boards. The statements of most of the men can be taken at face value.