RECRUITING.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 251, 20 October 1916, Page 6

RECRUITING.

FOURTEEN ENLIST. SIX ACCEPTED. Fourteen men enlisted at the City Recruiting Station since the "Star" went to press yesterday. Of that number four were rejected as unfit for active service, and four deferred. The following are the names, occupations, and addresses of those accepted:— No. 1 (CITY) GROUP. Irwin W. Storey, accountant, Remuera. Horace B. Wright, compositor, Albert Street, City. . Norman P. Jack, hank clerk, Henderson. George E. Whitney, seaman, Victoria Avenue, Eden Terrace. William .1. Davies, plumber, Jervois Road, Ponsonby. THE ACCUMULATED SHORTAGE. (From Our Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. The recruiting position is hot quite so bad in fact as it appears to be on paper. Of course, a shortage of over 1000 men in the Twenty-second Reinforcements is a serious matter, but it has to be remembered this represents not only the shortage in the present draft, but also the accumulated shortage in previous drafts. The reserve from which former shortages were repaired has been exhausted, but a certain number of men have been carried over from the last draft and a certain number transferred from the Artillery and Army Service Corps, and these together will go some considerable Way towards filling up the present gap. But the Mmii ter of Defence, while remaining optimistic about the future, is facing the facts quite frankly. He is speeding up the machinery required to put Clause 35 of the Military Service Act —"the family skirkers' clause" as it is popularly known—into operatiou, and he is pushing forward the arrangements for giving effect to the other compulsory provisions of the measure. He hopes to fill the Twenty-second entirely with volunteers, and also the Twenty-third, but if eligible men hang back after that they must expect to be given no choice in the matter. Mr. Allen himself has no liking for conscription in the sense that has been attributed to him in some quarters, but he is committed to the supply of so many men a month till the end of the war. and he is not going to allow the credit of the country to suffer through any lack of effort on his part.