NATIONAL REGISTER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144828, 4 November 1915, Page 5

NATIONAL REGISTER.

THE “IF REQUIRED” PROVISO. New inquiries are being made daily about the National Register, says the Wanganui Chronicle, and how men in certain circumstances shall fill in the answers to certain questions. They are afraid lest the answers may embarrass . them in the future. A correspondent, “Old Volunteer,” who finds himself in a quandary as to how he ought to answer certain of the questions, writes as follows: — “As there are some doubts concerning No. 8 (b) (ii.) question, reading as follows: ‘Are you (being a single man with dependents or a married man or a widower with dependents), willing to become a member of an expeditionary force, if’required?” I would like to ask what answer a man with dependents should give to, the above question if he is only willing to enlist after the resources in men without dependents are exhausted. The form says, ‘Any person who wilfully makes any false statements with respect to any such particulais is liable to'a fine of £IOO or imprisonment for six months.* If a man with dependents answered ‘Yes.* and a man without dependents answered ‘No,’ and the Government required more men, could they ask the man with dependents to enlist? If he refused while men without dependents had not enlisted, would ho be liable to the penalty stated in No. 2 section?”

Replying to these questions on Friday. the Government Statistician said it did not seem to be ■well enough understood that there was no clause in tiie Registration Act which empowered the Government to require a man to fulfil a promise made. If a man with dependents answered that he was willing to enlist “if required,” the Government have no compulsory power over him under any circumstances. His reply is asked for merely as an indication of his attitude towards enlistment in the Expeditionary Force. Ho thought people wore reading conscription into the Act. Before the Government could compel men to enlist, they must have legislative authority, and if they had legislative authority it would not make the slightest difference to the order in which men were called up whether they were willing or unwilling to go. Conscription would be universal in application, and under it men would be culled up without any regard to the manner in which they had answered the register questions.

The Prime -Minister, referring to the point raised about the liability of a man to a penalty for making a promise which he subsequently refused to fulfil, said that nobody who filled in tho schedule truthfully, to the best of his ability, could possibly bo liable to a penalty. Tho register was being taken to supply the Government with information as to the number of men who might be available in case of necessity. This was very valuable information, which ought to bo in the possession of every Government in every part of the British Dominions. The writer of the latter should answer “Yes” to the ciuestion about which he seemed to have difficulty, and in tho space below ho could give as his reasons for not enlisting tho fact that the necessity of providing for his wife and children made it difficult for him to eidist at tho present. Referring to the register generally, Mr. -Massey, said that his information was that there were many thousands of young men who, when filling in their cards, were going to signify their willingness to enlist. Ho did not get this information from the department, because in his opinion this would not be proper. Ho was of this opinion because of letters he had had, and interviews he had had on tho subject. He was satisfied that the register was going to have a good effect.