ENROLMENT OF RESERVE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 909, 23 September 1916, Page 5

ENROLMENT OF RESERVE.

, ISSUE OF CERTIFICATES, APPLICATIONS TOTAL 140,000. Wellington,- Wednesday. The Government Statistician has sent out 146,000 acknowledgments of applications for certificates of enrolment. This number would appear to reveal a very large shortagp, for it was expected that tuere would be 200,000 members of the reserve at present. It is the opinion of the statistician that the shortage is accounted for by the fact that men enrolled in the national register did not make application for certificates but, left the registration stand. Their action wll cause a great deal of work, because the police will have to tackle them to ensure that they are at the former addresses. , No obliaation was imposed on anyone already enrolled in the National Reigster to do anything about enrolment in the Expeditionary Force Reserve. All that the law -a man ia that he shall be enrolled, and the duty and risk of seeing that he ia enrolled is put upon him personally. Apparently a great many have been content to take the risk. Since Saturday last, when the date of voluntarily enrolling in the reserve of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force lapsed, a new duty has been imposed upon Customs who search ships on their arrival from overseas ports. The3e officer have now to see that every new arrival of military age is enrolled. His name, address, occupation, etc., are carefully noted, and he haß to give the authorities an idea of his whereabouts.