The National Registration Bill was read a second time in
the Commons on Monday, after only thirty Members had voted for Sir Thomas Whittaker's amendment asking the House not to proceed with the measure. Mr. Long in moving the second reading denied that the Bill concealed the inten- tion to introduce " conscription." It did not touch the question of compulsory military service. All that could be truly said was that, if conscription ever became necessary, the Register would afford the required information as to the number of men available. The Bill did not even provide for compulsory industrial service. It only compelled men who were doing nothing to help their country to say that they were doing nothing. Mr. Long also begged Liberals not to imagine that the Register was the result of some malign plot of the Unionist members of the Cabinet. The objections raised in the debate by the opponents of the Bill were to the effect that it was unnecessary or inquisitorial, or that it involved a futile dispersion of energy. Mr. Henderson, the Labour member of the Government, stated that of the 8,213,505 forms sent to heads of families by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, less than half had been returned. This was an unanswerable argument for making a compulsory Register.
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