Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 1942. COMPULSORY WAR SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 1942. COMPULSORY WAR SERVICE

yO doubt there will be general approval of the regulations which provide for compulsory service by all male citizens between the ages of 18 and 66 in the Emergency Reserve Corps. In the emergency that, exists it is plainly right that the men of the Dominion should be called upon to render the service for vfhieh they are best fitted, whether in the armed forces or in the duties of civil defence.

A weakness of the position as it stands, however, is that the principle of compulsion has not been applied over the whole field of national service in war time. Service in the Expeditionary Force and in the Territorial Force is compulsory, and the same is now true of the Emergency Resrve Corps, but our Home Guard is still established on a. basis of voluntary enlistment. This is inconsistent and illogical, and in working practice may easily result in a more or l|sss serious waste of availabe manpower.

A better policy evidently would be to conscript the whole manhood of the Dominion, and to draft into each blanch 01. national, war service those best fitted to render that service. With Ihe institution of compulsory service in the Emergency Reserve Corps, this policy has been approached so closely that it is difficult to understand why the final step has not been taken which would make it rounded and complete. In the conditions meantime established, it is possible that the Dominion may now conscript for civil, defence duties some men better fitted to serve in the Home Guard than a proportion of the present members of that organisation.

It is an obviously anomalous state of affairs that the Home Guard should be under the necessity still of appealing for additional recruits while all other branches of the armed forces are recruited compulsorily and the civil defence services will now be manned in the same way. The only right and orderly policy evidently is to make a compulsory enrolment of men for all branches of war service, whether in the overseas or home fighting forces, or in civil defence duties, and to select them for service, in groups and individually, in accordance with age, fitness and availability, choosing of course for each branch the best men available for that branch.