MILITARY SERVICE

Evening Star, Issue 16237, 5 October 1916, Page 8

MILITARY SERVICE

A WARNING NOTE, Tho_ Hon. James Allen, on behalf of the Recruiting Board, sends us the following communication ; The work of preparing registers of the First and Second Divisions of the Expeditionary Force Reserve under the Military Service Act is now proceeding apace. It is just possible that the quotas o{ the new group recruiting districts for the Twenty-third Reinforcements (the November draft) will be based on the men available in the First Division of the Reserve, but in any case the machinery for taking a ballot, should voluntary recruiting not produce the nen required, will then be in full working order. The Recruiting Board are verysatisfied with the manner in which men of military age have responded to the proclamation and enrolled in the Reserve, but while this response has been quite up to expectations, I have reason to believe that a number of reservists have not enrolled, and I desire to sound a final note of warning. Every n.an of military age who applied for his certificate of enrolment should now have received a card of acknowledgment. If any man has not got this card the cause must be that either his application or the acknowledgment card has gone astray in transit. His proper course is to forward'at once another application to the Government Statistician, because it is not intended to await the issue of the certificates of enrolment before taking action in the case of men who, there is every reason to believe, a>e evading their legal obligations. In view of the probably early application of the ballot it would be manifestly unjust to permit any man, by reason of the fact that he has not enrolled, to increase the chances of citizens who have loyally done their duty 7, and therefore it is intended to round up all subjects, and ask them to produce an acknowledgment card as proof that they have applied for a certificate of enrolment. I wish to make it clear that it is not proposed to take advantage immediately of the geneial provisions of section 44, which empowers a constable to question any man who may reasonably be supposed "lo bo of military 7 age. The present action is to be restricted to specific cases where the Government Statistician or the police has reason to believe that men have not. registered. On conviction nil such men will be called up for service with the Expeditionary Force under section 34 of the Act.