RECRUITING

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1915, Page 2

RECRUITING

THE HON. MR. ALLEN IS SATISFIED. (Bt TELEGRAPH— PEBSS ASSOCIATION.) DUNEDIN, 27th January. In his reply to the • Patriotic and General Welfare Committee, the Minister for Defence (the Hon. James Allen) said that, so far as the Defence Department was concerned, the recruiting Bad been highly satisfactory throughout New Zealand. The Government had organised the whole scheme, and cards would be issued in a few days far the registration of those prepared to go into camp. The first step now was registration, and nothing else. Each would be asked to let the Departn.cnt know what notice he had to give his employer, and would be advised in time to give such notice. He did not wish to interfere with tho committees,' but the request had been made to him that the Department should pay for the cost of advertising, posters, and travelling expenses to recruiting meetings. He had not the > slightest objection to paying, on condition that he had some control over these expenses, jj He could not allow indiscriminate ex* penditure to take place. The Government was also perfectly willing to pay for advertising, if any method could be suggested by which the Government would be able to control the advertising, but he was not prepared to give a blank order for advertising. What he would like committees to do was to take out of his hands the mattter of advertising, end make it > a patriotic movement in each di&tnct, and he had the same thing to say about, travelling expenses. He was willing to pay, but could not commit the Government to an expenditure over which they had no control. In answer to a suggestion that the allotment to dependents should be pai^ as soon as the men went into camp, th Minister replied that though he was will ing to reconsider the question, the idet was that the recruit was on probation for the first month, and might bo sent home, and the Department left the man to make his own allotment for the o*jft month.