A SERIOUS SHORTAGE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 17038, 13 December 1915, Page 6

A SERIOUS SHORTAGE.

Xo serious-minded citizen can affect to regard the recruiting figures we publish this morning without something more than regret, In two daysj Canterbury should be ready with 58-5 men to go into camp at Trentham, and on Saturday we had 377 of them, leaving 208 to be found. At the average rate of recent recruiting wc are likely to have perhaps forty or nfty more recruits, leaving a shortage still of 150. The position is deplorable. It would have been possible, we believe, to have induced many hesitating young men to take the important step if only there I had been some 'ooal authority ready to asssume the initiative, but unfortunately it seems to be no one's business to organise recruiting on sensible linos, and so far we have scarcely got beyond the stage of addressing a few meetings and issuing a few rather cold appeals. The shortage seems to be commonly attributed to the anxiety of young men to spend Christmas with their families, and tho withdrawal of a number of volunteers does suggest that the near approach of the holiday season is influencing the recruiting figures. But we should like to be sure that this is the whole story. Why the Government- does not approach the problem with energy and imagination passes our comprehension. ft. has had sixteen months in which to study the question and to lay its plans, and yet the recruiting methods, except where local enterprise has come to the assistance, of the State, show no real improvement on those existing in August of last year. We hesitate to say what perhaps ought to be said in the circumstances, but in face of the position to which the extraordinary laxity of the Government has given rise it is difficult, to avoid harsh criticism. Wo are asking men to lay down their lives for the Empire, and yet, m far as the Government is concerned, tne only encouragement they tire receiving comes in the shape of a Ministerial appeal circulated through tbo J'ress Association. When a man docs enrol the State does not. take immediate advantage of his offer. If he happens to be half an inch short in chest measurement it leaves him to remedy tho defect himself, instead of providing a course of training <that would bring him up to the standard. Locally, we understand, an arrangement has bce-i made by which men who are rejected for .-mall deficiencies are handled by an oxpert, with strikingly successful results, but this is purely an unofficial undertaking. The whole business needs to be taken in '■and systematically. .Returning to thj figures, we find that the shortage is almost entirely in the infantry. Other branches of the service attract more than the quota. It is just a question whether, in the circumstances, a small addition to tho infantry rates of pay would not be warranted, to counteract the attractions of the other tranches. We can do nothing now, of course, beyond urging young men to face this mutter earnestly, and to facei it immediately. The need of men is urgent, und time is precious. If the holiday consideration is koeping them backs they should turn their thoughts for :t moment to tiie trenches, where other New Zealanders are holding out against odrls, and odds that are now rapidly :n;roasirtg.