INDISCRIMINATE CONSCRIPTION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3022, 8 March 1917, Page 6

INDISCRIMINATE CONSCRIPTION

I Sir, —I read your leader in the issue i of the 3rd inst., on tho question of exemptions, with great interest, and entirely agree with your remarks therein. it seems to mo that all the J trouble that has arisen, and is arising, I is attributable to the want of discrimj ination in enlistment. Britain, as well as the colonies, has been passing through a phase of what one may call hysterical patriotism, and the one idea. seem- to have been, to furnish men! men,!,men! and lose sight of expediency in doing so. As you point out in your leader, at the beginning of the war, Britain made the mistake of encouraging indiscriminate enlistment of eligible men in all occupations, with the result that large numbers (I should say thousands) had to be brought back from tho fighting , line" for work in the essential industries. It was easy for Britain to rectify her mistakes in a few days, but Now ZeaJand, having made the same blunder, it is hi her case practically irrevocable. Britain is crying out for foodstuffs, and the New Zealand Government has all along been "urging the farmers to use their utmost energy to increase production, but by. indiscriminate conscription, they not only made possible to do so, but 'the production of foodstuffs will decrease in the ensuing year all round, and in the case of wheat by one-half.

I am heart and soul in favour of conscription, and I am sure the whole country recognises the strenuous and Irojan work the Ministers have done but I agreo with, you, Sir, that it is essential that our Government should formulate immediately some definite policy m regard to exemptions, in order to maintain tho efficiency of the essential industries, even if it is necessary at the expense of the non-essen-tial ones.

The highest patriotism is'to do the ■utmost for the Empire, and if, as is emphasised in < almost every Home paper one sees, more foodstuffs are of vital importance, and that- tho colonies must keen up the supplies, then it can only bo done by discriminate conscription, that is by leaving sufficient expert labour to carry on efficiently the essential industries.—l am, etc H. D. VAVASOUR,. Blenheim, March 5.