QUESTION OF RECRUITING

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 126, 29 May 1915, Page 4

QUESTION OF RECRUITING

•> There is a lack of clear thinking on the subject of enlistment for Imperial and national service, and this need of helpful thought does not apply to only the general public. Amid the confusion of many voices, official and unofficial, who knows what the recruiting position is to-day? One week the volunteering 'seems to be satisfactory, and it has Ministerial congratulation, but n«xt week fervent appeals foi- more men ars heard throughout the country. Whi'e members of the House of Representatives have been in recess, anonymous newspaper correspondents have constituted themselves a kind of Parliament, and they have prescribed drastic penalties for " shirkers," " cowards," and the like. These pen-and-ink free-lances, firing from the hedge of anonymity, make themselves liable to the charge which they so hastily proclaim against others. The absence of a signature is 1 no trustworthy evidence of scant courage, , but the missing namea to some of these i intemperate tirades heavily discount the letters. The writers' contemptuous epithets are usually turned against single men, and the accusers apparently forget that general sweeping charges can easily do injustice in certain cases. Nofc all single men, suitable in physique for military service, v can rush away to the front. Some, from the viewpoint of maintaining dependents, are more awkwardly situated than numbers of married men. Some citizens axe apt to be too quick in judging the private circumstances of neighbours or others, and the judgments are commonly unfriendly 'or harsh. Some critics have urged private employer* to put the screw on single men, and indeed this advice practically urges the argument of compulsion. If employers allow themselves to be such, instruments, they will be provoking class bitterness which would nofc soon pa«B away. There is a right and a wrong way of resorting to compulsion — and the wrong way is by private enterprise. The pushing of lagging persons to the front should be done by Parliament, by proper constitutional procedure. Recent words by the Minister of Defence conveyed a suggestion that it might be necessary for a proportion of manned men to volunteer, and thus shame backward bachelors into patriotic action. W© do not see why it is necessary to hint at a possible need of married men, while some terns of thousands of single men, with no insuperable obstacle between them and enlistment, remain to be convinced by moral suasion or otherwise. The State cannot afford to despatch any considerable number of married men while it has eligible bachelors. Manifestly it is a waste of time, at this stage, to discuss married men, except those who are able to leave their dependents without fear of want. It will be time enough to bring the married into the field when the supply of eligible bachelors threatens to run short. For the present, the plain duty of the authorities is to concentrate their attention on the bachelors. Parliament will meet towards the end of June; and therefore those single men who are free to serve have a clear month in which to register their names. If the enrolment fails to come up to reasonable expectations within the next few weeks, it will be Parliament's duty to amend the Defence Act to enable the Government to call to the colours sufficient men to keep the reinforcements going at full strength. It will be far better to have straight-out, intelligent action by Parliament than to have endless mischief and annoyance made by all sorts of unofficial advisers, whose well-meant patriotic declamation can do much more harm than good, at times.