25,000 MEN SHORT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14449, 8 November 1917, Page 3

25,000 MEN SHORT.

AUSTRALIAN RECRUITING I". FIGURES.

Professor Macintyre, the chairman of the New South -Wales State Recruiting Committee, stated m Sydney last week that the war and tfte conditions of recruiting m Australia presented a contrast which could; not be viewed with equanimity . by any person m the Commonwealth. ! . V Australia; he ssaid, must veiw her share >' m; the wa*t m the light of the fiaets,- and.,, it woul^f 'be. worse than useless — 'ifr would be abaoj^ly unpatriotic — to slur over fact tttat' in this desperate hour of tlfß, Allie^' ..peril Australia was sending $ewer/arici' fe^er reinforcements. The Government had" laid down that .7000 men a month was the' quota required to keep the Australian •• divisions at the front up to strength. Though every i effort 'had been made to accomplish this, and while recognising that the success attained had been considerable;; the facts were that, ba^ed thi&vii^ttii^ent, the Commonwealth was 25,000 men short at the end of last ' September. Since then the 'disastrous industrial Upheaval had overshadowed Jbhe great interest of this world-war, and more recently the Commonwealth had- not supplied even 50 per cent, of its quota. Indeed, at the. moment New Zealand was' sending ; : more r men to^ the front as reinforcements to hei* division than Australia was sending to ; ; make : tip the?" '• wastage of » a 'force nominally five times greater. It tras absolutely' inedessary for Australia, to .Realise the seriousness, of the, situdtidn; and whither she Was drifting.' Whatever pledges were given by political parties,. Australia's pledge, consecrated m the blood of. hep noblest, was j "the last meal : and the Tasfe' shilling;" That was Australia's pledge overshadowing all else.