RECRUITING

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23003, 24 April 1940, Page 7

RECRUITING

TO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sir, —I have been following with interest the progress of recruiting, and also the letters in your paper dealing with this subject. We are having recruiting campaigns all over the country. The recruiting conference is to sit in an endeavour to push along recruiting, and after it is all finished, where are we? We get a few extra recruits, then once more it slackens off. The Government recruiting committees and numerous other local bodies tell us what they will do for the boys on their return. What I would like to say is this: Why not start off by helping the boys before they go away? Some of those boys leaving our shores will never return, and what will have been done for them? They will leave -with plenty of promises; the people will applaud them, pat them on the back, and tell them what wonderful chaps

they are. Why not start off by doing something for the boys before they go away, as well as when they come back? I should like to make one'or two suggestions. When our boys travel into Christchurch from Burnham they have to pay Is 6d train fare. Why does not the Government let the boys in uniform travel free? The same applies to the trams. If doing this meant raising the general public’s fares, I am sure the people would not object to the little extra, knowing that the boys in camp were receiving the benefit. My last suggestion is that each picture theatre set aside one night in which it would allow the boys in uniform free access to its show. Once again, I am sure the general public would not object to paying the little extra towards this privilege for the boys. If this were done, I am sure it would mean a better response in recruits. Not that the boys would enlist because they were getting something for nothing, but simply because they would know that the Government, local bodies, and the people in general really mean it when they say they will help the boys on their return.—Yours, etc., PREPARED TO DO MY BIT. April 22, 1940. TO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sir, —Recently two subjects have been discussed in your correspondence columns which I should like to mention. We are daily exhorted to enlist by all sections of the -Government, from the Prime Minister downwards. Now I cannot but feel that if a list were published giving the numbers of eligible members of Parliament and trades union secretaries, and their sons of military age, and the percentage of these that have enlisted, the example would be so striking, that no decent man could do otherwise than join up. The Controller of Censoring says that of late only military matters are being censored. I don’t think he knows what is going on in his department if he says that. Can he tell us the number of men in his department, the number of these that are reliable civil servants of some years standing and the numbers that have been taken on from the ranks of the public since his office was started. What qualification, besides of course being ardent supporters of the Government must this list have had to be so employed.—Yours, etc.. FACTS WANTED. April 16, 1940. [The Director of Publicity, to whom this letter was referred, states that it does not appear to call for any special comment.]