SHIRKING FAMILIES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 826, 3 October 1916, Page 11

SHIRKING FAMILIES.

OVER 1000 MEN CONCERNED. The Recruiting Board has issued the following statement this afternoon : For some time past, defence officers as well as Recruiting Committees throughout the Dominion have been compiling lists of families that come within the provisions of section 35 of the Military Service Act. This is the section that empowers the Minister of Defence, if he is satisfied with respect to any family that it consists of or includes two or more brothers who belong to the first division of the Reserve and are not permanently medically unfit—to call on any or all of these brothers to show cause before a Military Service Board why they should not be called upon for service in Ihe Expeditionary Force.

A total of between 1000 and 2000 names have been submitted to defence headquarters as coming within Ibis category. Steps are now being taken to verify the particulars with respect to each of these men, in order to ensure that Ihe notice to appear before a Military Service Board shall be served only on those to whom section 35 does apply. It is expecled that the progress of these inquiries will be sufficiently advanced to enable the first batch of notices to be sent out late this week, and I hey will then be dispatched unless, in the meantime, the men concerned have, by voluntary enlistment, removed themselves from the operation of section 35. It is intended to send these notices out through the group commanders, who have been instructed to cancel the notices in all cases where the men named therein have since come forward and voluntarily enlisted. Although the Act empowers Ihe Minister of Defence to call on "any or all of these brothers," it is intended to serve a notice on every brother in the first division, no matter how many may be affected in a family, and to leave the Military Service Board to decide as to how many brothers from one family shall serve. The Recruiting Board, therefore, wishes clearly to warn all brothers who : belong lo the first division of Ihe Reserve thai this is their last chance voluntarily lo enlist. After Ihis week they will be soldiers of j the Expeditionary Force unless they lean show cause to a .Military Serj vice Board why Ihey should nol be | called up for service.