POOR RESPONSE

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 134, 3 December 1915, Page 8

POOR RESPONSE

TO THE URGENT APPEAL,

WILL THE RANKS BE FILLED?

The response to the Defence authorities' appeal for men to make up the infantry for the 11th Reinforcements has been disappointingly small in Wellington city and suburbs. Last evening 12 men registered at the Town Hall, and this morning only 5. Of these only 9 men for the infantry were passed as fit and available for the 14th. At the Drill Hall, Buckle-street, the position is worse, no men having enlisted there last night or this morning.

To-day District Headquarters, Palmerston North, advised that of 75 available men warned to go into camp yesterday, only 35 did so, the remainder stating that they preferred taking their Christmas and New Year holidays to going into Trentham. This report is regarded as a specially serious one, as it raises the fear that a considerable proportion of the men on the books as available for the I.4th instant will not turn up. It is evident therefore that if the 11th Reinforcements are to be made up public opinion will require to assert itself in the srongest possible manner, and a once, as there is no time to lose. The men are urgently required, and if New Zealand is not to suffer disgrace the numbers must be forthcoming.