MILITARY AGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 September 1939, Page 6

MILITARY AGE

BRITISH LABOUR PARTY AMENDMENT OPPOSED BY MINISTER. LAST CALL TO BE MADE ON MEN UNDER 20. (Received This Day, noon.) LONDON, September 3. The Secretary for War (Mr HoreBelisha) replying in the House of Commons to a Labour amendment to the National Service Bill aimed at increasing the age liability from eighteen to twenty, assured the House that this lower age group would be one of the last to be called up. -Let us hope,” he said, “that we get through the whole of this war without having to call upon them.” The Minister added: “I think there is no good purpose to be served by carrying an amendment of this kind when boys of seventeen are defending Poland at this very moment. We are taking from the active forces prepared for overseas all men under nineteen, and we do not intend to send them to France, although they enlisted as regular soldiers.” The country, he went on to state, now had all the men it required except certain classes of tradesmen. It would therefore be some time before it called on any other age group. The Bill was passed. DRAMATIC BREAK THE BRITISH DECLARATION OF WAR. ANNOUNCED BY POLISH RADIO STATIONS. (Received This Day, 10.50 a.m.) WARSAW September 3. Polish wireless stations interrupted their programmes at 1 p.m. with the dramatic interjection: “Germany. Britain has declared war on you.” Then the English and Polish anthems were played. BRITISH COMMANDS APPOINTMENTS ANNOUNCED. British Army appointments have been announced, in broadcasts from Daventry, as follow: — General Viscount Gort, Commander of British Forces Overseas. General Sir Edmund Ironside, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Sir Walter Kirk, Commander in Chief cf Home Defence. 1