REGISTRATION AND RATIONS.
(To TIM EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,-1L is proposed to amend the National Registration Act by registering bogs Who had hot attained the age of fifteen years when the Register wet corispiled,- as Well as men who have been discharged from the Army and Navy. The existing Register, which was carefally Made, has lost a good deal of its practical value in consequence of removals not having been carefully fol- lowed up. Sly suggestion is that, instead of amending The Register as proposed, it should be Made compulsory for every Man, woman, and child to be registered, and to use such registration as the Pivot oh Which to Work Military Service, sugar and other rations, removals, changes of occupation, National Insurance, National Service, and the rest. Food and occupation would be dependent on regietration, which would in a large measure ensure its suetss, and registration authorities would be responsible for providing the information, which is now laboriously compiled from several sources which are often inaccurate and incomplete.
The present time is opportune to complete the National Register, as the information on the household sugar application form would help to eliminate bogus claims for registration, or at any rate prove the genuineness of such applications. The waste of money, energy, and man-power which is now expended in compiling returns, registers, and ration-papers is very great, because we failed to register the nation at the commencement of the war. Each Government Department appears to be compiling a register of its own in its own way, the information obtained not being available for any other Department, and with the consequent overlapping. There is still time to remedy the defect by making the National Register a complete index upon which all Depart- ments should work. No scheme of rationing can be effectively carried out unless this is done, for even Local Food Committees are discovering that they cannot satisfactorily carry out the local scheme of rationing on the diminutive sugar-card which the Ministry of Food led us to anticipate would be the basis for com- pulsory rationing if that course was found necessary.—I am, Sir,
CIVILIAN,
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