THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1915. AN URGENT CALL.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13772, 8 May 1915, Page 4

THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1915. AN URGENT CALL.

The Hon. James Allen uttered a simple reflection in a chat with a Well- S ington pressman on Thursday whicb must be occupying the minds of thouI sands of young New Zealanders when they read the daily additions to the casualties our Expeditionary Force sustained in the opening phase of the operations on the Gallipoli Peninsula. "If I had not already registered and I saw the lists of casualties circulated to-day," Mr. Allen said, "I should feel that the call had come to me in most urgent terms. If I hadn't already done so, I should go straight away and enlist. Ido not think the country has really realised how tre-, mendous is the job we have in hand, and how we have to lose men, and how the lost places have to be filled by those who are here and fit to go and who have not yet. gone. I cannot believe it possible that the man who is fit to go does not want to go." It is true that we are still waiting in anxiety for the lists of those killed in action, which so far the authorities have been unable to furnish. But the numbers of the wounded indicate the severity of the fighting in which our men have been en-

gaged. The necessities of war deprive us of details of the progress of the great enterprise in which they are taking part, save for the official messages couched in the briefest and most general terms which communicate little more than wo all expected, namely, that they are acquitting themselves nobly. The lists of wounded have brought home to us as nothing, else has done, the realities of the war and the magnitude of the part in it which we must prepare ourselves to see through to the end. What are the requirements that the Dominion will be called upon to satisfy in the immediate future in the shape of reinforcements, the Minister of Defence specified a short time ago. To meet the engagements New Zealand has entered into with the Imperial authorities, 16,000 men and approximately 3600 .horses will be wanted before December 12th, and between that date and April cf next year, 5300 men and approximately 1500 horses will be required. That is to say, between now and-April, 1916, the authorities in New Zealand will require close on 16,000 men and nearly 5200 horses. • The registration of men, however, must considerably exceed the number stated, as allowance must be made for men rejected on account of medical nnfitness. Mr. Allen has expressed his readiness to take the platform throughout the country should necessity arise,1 to make a direct appeal to the available- men " of military ago, and suitableness in other respects to volunteer, but we do. not think that such measures will become necessary. |Up to the present the authorities' experience has been, that men have come I forward readily in sufficient number.to enable the reinforcement drafts to be regularly despatched at full strength and at the stipulated intervals. There is no lack of material to fill the requirements for the future outlined by Mr. Allen, and the appeal of the casualty lists and the picture they conjure up of the gallant work the New Zealanders are doing in the battle line constitute the most powerful incentive it is possible to conceive for every man in a position to do so to volunteer. It is an urgent call to all capable of doing so who have not yet intimated their willingness to serve, and we fully share Mr. Allen's conviction that the response in New Zealand will be no lesis spontaneous than, it has been in Australia; or than the wave of eagerness, to bear arms that has been inspired n young Canadians by the gallantry ■!■ thfiir fellow-countrymen in Flanders.