The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1915. RECRUITING.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 28 October 1915, Page 4

The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1915. RECRUITING.

There has been a good deal of faultfinding with r&spect to recruiting as carried on in the Dominion, and apparently wo have not yet evolved a sufficiently comprehensive, completely satisfactory plan. Some time ago the Christchurch Citizen's Camp Committee suggested that when "a man offered his services they should be accepted with no delay other than that required by the medical examination; that if this examination were satisfactory, subject to minor remedial defects, he should be immediately taken into a local camp, draw his pay, and have his defects remedied at the public expense. While this was going on he would be under military discipline, and would receive elementary military and physical training, would be smartened up in mind and body, and when the time came for him to be drafted to Trentham he would be ready to proceed with the fuller training that can perhaps only be given in a large central camp." But the Defence Department saw serious objections to the adoption of this plan, and perhaps it came too late in the day; that is, not until the demand for recruits became too urgent to admit of the administrative rearrangements which would be entailed by the adoption of the plan. Under the existing conditions it would seem to be first of all necessary to ascertain the quota of each provincial or military district, on a population basis, and then appeal to each area to supply its due number of recruits; but the Minister of Defence thinks that this will not be practicable until the Government possesses the census under the Registration Act, and knows the number of men between twenty and forty-five in each district. "It is very difficult (says Mr Allen) to come to any definite conclusion until we get this registration through, because I fancy that the younger men have moved a good deal during the last few years. For those reasons we are very anxious to see the results of the register. AVhen we get these results we shall know where recruiting is slack, and we shall be able to concentrate our efforts in those districts where some stimulus is required." In the meantime things go on much as they have been doing from the first, except that men who enlist are sent forward to the camp with less delay than formerly, and that persuasive speakers like Messrs Hornsby and McLaren now travel the country, and, in cogent and eloquent addresses, encourage all eligible men to volunteer for service at the front in this great crisis in the history of the Empire and the world. Such appeals undoubtedly help in their degree, but, to judge by the experience of Australia, they might be supplemented to good purpose by means of route marches by recruits who have undergone some training. Of one of these marches the Sydney Morning Herald said: "The heat and the dust out west matter not t-o them, and the rain does not damp their ardour the Gilgantlra recruits go marching on to Sydney. Through pouring rain and black soil they swung into Dubbo on Wednesday, bearing aloft their banner, 'Come, boys, join us'; and having been given a great civic reception, and added to their numbers some additional recruits, they proceeded gaily on their way. At every township at which they halt they gather in new recruits. Like the snowball, the contingent grows larger as it rolls along. These men from Gilgandra have heard the call from their comrades in Gallipoli, tmd they are answering it 'We are coming.' It is a call that cannot go unanswered as we value our lives and our country." Were this plan followed in New Zealand there is little doubt that it would act as an irresistible appeal where other methods would end in failure; and it is success that is necessary, and urgently necessary, m this case. Lord Kitchener calls for more and still more men from all parts of the Empire, and the King also in a moving message to his people says: "More men and yet more men are wanted to keep my armies in the field, and through them to secure victory and enduring peace. vln ancient days the darkest moment ever produced in men of our race the sternest resolve. I ask you men of all classes to come forward voluntarily and take your share in the fight, in freely responding to my appeal to you, by giving support to our brothers who for long' months have nobly upheld Britain's past traditions and the glory of her arms." Then the appeals made by men at the front should receive a ready response from every eligible man who has any British fire in his heart. "The best presents you can send us,"-

writes an Australian froni the Dardanelles, "are the reinforcements we* need so'badly.", And a New Zealander, ' writing more fully in the same strain, says: "Nothing would hearten us up so much as to hear that all the young men in New Zealand were Wowding one another in their efforts to get to our assistance, but the news that filters through does not give us the impression that they areT I wish they knew how. much they are wanted, that men are sickening and dying for want of a few weeks' and that we are all and hoping and still waiting for the help of our old mates. Give everyone of them a shove along when you get the chaWe." Appeals like these cannot be left unanswered with credit to those to whom they are made, nor without indifference to the great human and national interests that are at stake, v and we are hopeful that they will meet with the response called for by the greatness and t^e urgency of the occasion.