THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

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

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

The Empire is stocktaking. It is marshalling, counting and classifying its most precious resources —the lives of its people. In Britain Lord Derby's great appeal is on the eve of its closure, and tho advent of its message to the Imperial Government; in Australia a scheme, which owes much to Lord'Derby, is being put into force; in New Zealand the National Register of men has been made. Only the future knows whether or not some system of organised recruiting, something definite like the. Lord Derby scheme, will be put into operation in the Dominion, as one of the first fruits of this inquiry, to secure definite results. In the meantime it is interesting to examine further the extremely enlightening preliminary summary of the. register which the Government Stat : stician has issued. This set of figures does not include those, incomplete schedules which tho Government office is investigating, but it covers the replies of 208,513 men between the ages of nineteen and forty-four years, who are divided into twenty-six divisions, marking each yearly rise from tho minimum to the maximum age. Of these 13,463 have already offered their services and have been accepted or rejected. 3f)fi3 are incapacitated for military service, 3206 are foreign subjects and 2SB are men who have returned from tho front.. These leave an aggregate of 187.593 who may be considered as available, and .of these 133.207 have signified' their willingness to serve either in a military,or a civil capacity. The figures betray the heavy call made upon the younger men of the Dominion, and they leave a preponderance of men between . the ages of thirty and thirty-five years, a period at which military experts always hope to find men steady, reliable and capable of enduring for a long time a sustained strain, if they cannot equal tho dash of "sweet, impetuous youth." Of the 56,605 men who fall into this period'. 1908 have offered their services, and 36 are returned men, while 1852 are. incapacitated. This leaves 52.209 eligible for enlistment, and tho figures relating to them are a« follow :

Xo Military Civil .SerService. Service, vice. Without dependent* . 6,062 1,8*3 1.831 "VfilJ* dependents . . 33,903 10,8tli 7,715

Coming to the quinquennium lowest in tho scale of ages, from nineteen to twenty-three years, where the mind of tho Dominion is just developing into manhood, tho figures disclose that thero are 24,286 to answer the. questions of tho register. The replies work out as follow :

Xo Military Civil SerS«rvico. Sorvicc. vice. Without dependents . 11.105 4,509 1,190 With dependents . . -ÜB'2 1.708 1,9 M A rough calculation is sufficient to test the vital differences between the men without dependents ill these two periods. It will be seen that the ratio of men prepared to serve in the forces is as 12 to 11 in favour of the older men, while in a comparison with the full period from nineteen to fortyfour years, the ratio is as 6 to 5, once more against the youthful section. Turning to. the tables showing tho numbers who declined to give any service the ratio is as 5 to 4 in favour—though it is difficult to use the term favour in such a case—of youth. It may bo that these figures suggest that the more youthful portion of the Dominion's men have not felt the position as seriously or considered the Register as gravely as their older companions. Tf this be so, the position suggests that there is a place for a local camp to stir the imagination, or for a man like Mr L. M. Isitt to assist the reasoning of these young men, who may have expressed themselves hastily or without realising the effect, of their replies, and' now may be ripe for inflii(|nce or argument that will lead them to review what, on the face.of it, may be construed into ingratitude. There may be other explanationsBut, we feel bound to say to these 4190 young men between nineteen and twenty-three years, and in fact to everyone of the S3OO men without dependents, that at most, they had the courage to say that they would not serve their Empire, in any capacity in the hour of their Empire's direst need'.