The Press. Monday, December 6, 1915. The Recruiting Question.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15454, 6 December 1915, Page 6

The Press. Monday, December 6, 1915. The Recruiting Question.

As a result of his recruiting campaign

tne Hon. Dr. MeNab has expressed his conviction that there is need of impressing upon tho public the seriousness i'f the crisis. "I honestly think," lie said in Dunedin. "that a great "number of the people do not realise " that things are serious. They havo the idea tliat the final result is as- •" stircd, arid, that being so, why worry • themselves?" AVe aro afraid that it is quite' - true that the .stupid and unpatriotic fi'arne of mind described by Or. McNab if) very common. There is little doubt 'that Germany will bo beaten in.the end. but it is tho part of i patriot to bring that end near and to do everything jrossiblo to limit the loss and suffering occasioned by the •var. For New Zea landers there an-, >r ought to be. two main considerations. In. the first place every man who can go to the front lias a debt to pav to the bravo soldiers whose hones lie in •allipoli. No man fit for service, and in a position to enlist, ought to accept existence in comfort at home, h' he does not enlist he is accepting as n tree giit to himself the blood of some iiiend. li is not for such men that our soldiers went out to suffer and die. In tho sccond place, by the passage of time, and through the growth of the colonial torccs. there is no longer any excuse for tho idea that it does not greatly matter what New Zealand does. It does matter, and it is mattering more every day. fur the Australasian lorve, are now a powerful factor in the lighting in South-l'.a.-storn Kurope. li\ tjie meantime the recruiting figures are at present very unsatisfactory, and if compulsion is to lie avoided, some new and effective methods must bo ein- ' plos"ed. Vie print to-day a description >■: the svstein of recruiting employed in Great Britain, and we believe that r.'iotu-r oi- later our own Government v.ill have to adopt soni ( < similar means el raisin:: tho necessary forces. The essenco oi Lord Derby's campaign— which was to have ended on November • ■'>rh. but. which, it is indicated in one *'i t'j-d;:y\i cable messages, has been < xtended ior a week or two—is the -vrsonal canvass of recruitable men. Viie aim is to make sure of every such inaa who can be spared: "tho whole " secret," tus Lord Derby says, "is eer- " tainty. and the doing away with the

''prcsen. hand-to-mouth existence." Wo need not attempt to summarise hero what we print fully elsewhere and what we hope everyone interested in recruiting—and everybody ought to be —will read for himself. We may noto. however, that in the face of the Derby plan our Government cannot expect the public to bt< much impressed bv such an argument as that vigorous action on a large .vale will bring in ,; too "many"' recruits all at once. When the national registration returns aro analysed and tabulated, the Government .should <lraw up lists on the plan followed in Britain, and should appeal, not generally, but individually, to the men who have cxp-essed their willing ncjs to serve : 'if required.'' The men .should be addressed in some regular order, and an attempt should be made to meet and remove any of their reasonable objections to service. It is absurd that Ministers should bo em-pha-ising the need for a better response to the call lor recruits while tho Government do nothing effective to secure the men. Head-shakings and passive anxieties should be replaced by action as soon a.s possible.