Search For Defaulters Under Service Act

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30155, 12 June 1963, Page 14

Search For Defaulters Under Service Act

A team of inspectors of the Labour Department has this week been searching specific areas of Christchurch for defaulters under the National Military Service Act. The inspectors, in the last two days, have located some defaulters who failed to register for national service.

“The department’s inspectors are now out checking,” said the district superintendent of the Labour Department, Mr C. P. Collins, yesterday. “A few defaulters

have been located. No doubt, as more territory is covered, the number located will increase.” Arrangements would be made, said Mr Collins, for medical examination of defaulters who were found. If they passed the fitness tests, they would be made available for military training. “Those who default automatically go into camp if they’re fit,” said Mr Collins. The department's inspectors, he said, would take a month or two to cover Canterbury country areas in their search for defaulters.

Defaulters who voluntarily registered for national service before being picked up by inspectors would not be prosecuted. Mr Collins said that employers of young men who failed to register for national service were also liable to be prosecuted. The number of young men who had registered for national service was still below the estimated number required to register under the terms of the act The young men being checked in the p r esent investigation, he said, were those who had reached the age of 20 years between July 1, 1961, and June 30, 1963. Returns from the quarter ending in March, suggested that on • a Dominion-wide scale, about 2500, out of an approximate total of 17,200 young men, had at that stage failed to register for the latest call up. A Wellington report said that the department was streamlining its methods of tracing the young men.