NEW ARMY RESERVE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18265, 26 December 1924, Page 17

NEW ARMY RESERVE.

TWENTY THOUSAND MEN WANTED. Recruiting for the Supplementary Eeserve, the formation of which was authorised last August, began last Wednesday at all Army recruiting offices and Territorial drill halls (says the "Army and Navy Gazette" of October 25th). This Eeserve is provisionally fixed at 20,639, and it is designed for the v purpose of completing on mobilisation the requirements of the Royal Artillery, Eoyal Engineers, and most of the other technical or administrative corps. This new branch of the Army Eeserve, of which every man will receive an annual bounty ranging from £8 to £2O according to his trade and without the necessity of leaving his present job, is purely technical in character, and among the tradesmen required arc boilermakers. coppersmiths, riveters and drillers, carpenters, millwrights, woodturners and coachpainters, moulders, patternmakers, motor drivers, turners, fitters, and tool makers, blacksmiths, electricians and vulcanisers, saddlers and farriers, bakers, butchers, hospital cooks, masseurs and dispensers, instrumentmakers (surgical and optical), clerks, and others. All candidates for enlistment must be between the ages of 18 and 38 years, but youths between 17 and 18 may be accepted if otherwise eligible, provided the written consent of their parents is obtained; and married men may be accepted irrespective of whether they have reached 26 years of age and irrespective cf the number of children dependent on them. The ne'.v branch will for the present be divided into two categories. One ("called "B") will comprise all personnel required to undergo training in peace. It will be attached to, and be supernumerary to, the establishment of the Territorial Army; and, in the main, it will be raised, trained, and administered in a similar manner to Territorial Army personnel. Enlistment will be for a period of four years, with the opportunity to re-engage for further periods of one, two, three, or four years. The other category ("C") will consist of those who will not have to undergo, any training in peace, but will be required, in the event of being called to the Colours, to perform duties similar to their professions or occupations in civil life. Enlistment will be for periods of two, three, or four years, also with the opportunity to re-engage. Only men who are skilled tradesmen will be accepted for enlistment as tradesmen in this reserve. Candidates, if not actually in regular civil employment on enlistment, will be required to undergo a short trade test; men, however, actually in regular civil employment may be accepted without undergoing such trade test if their employers give them a satisfactory reference. They will, however, be liable to be tested under Army arrangements after enlistment.

Bounties of £2O, £l6. and £l2 will be paid annually to men enlisted tradesmen, according to the group in which their trade is allotted. For all other recruits the annual bounty will be £B. But these bounties will be conditional upon the reservists residing in Great Britain or Northern Ireland, reporting themselves in writing quarterly, and in the case of category "B" performing any prescribed training.