HOME GUARD AND E.P.S.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 101, 1 May 1942, Page 4

HOME GUARD AND E.P.S.

THE Government's latest decision concerning the Home Guard offers * the welcome prospect of a systematic approach to the problem of using the remaining manpower of the Dominion. The mixture of conscription and voluntaryism has produced many anomalies which it should now be possible to remove. Although a great majority of those who have not been called up for army service have always been willing to give service where it was needed, It has not been easy for them to decide in which direction their duty lay. At one time there were strong calls In the direction of the Home Guard. Later, when it was discovered that equipment for the Home Guard was short, enthusiasm for service in it dwindled, and many men thought they could be more immediately useful In the E.P.S. Then It was found that, at least in some districts, too many men were in the E.P.S. and too few in the Home Guard. Under the new system, every man will have the nature of his service decided for him. Many men have long desired this, and ask for nothing better. It should not be thought that the composition of the Home Guard and E.P.S., after the selection committees have done their work, will be stable. As long as the ballots for army service continue both organisations, It appears certain, will regularly lose men. On the other hand, It la to be expected that the army will find a proportion of the men now mobilised unsuitable for continued service, and it may be possible to transfer some of them to the E P S. or Home Guard- but no provision for this appears in the statement made by the Minister yesterday.