Newspaper makes headlines by failing to stop staff call-up

There was a response in Stirling to the Government’s appeal for men to volunteer for work in industries vital to the war effort.

In early 1917, it was decided that in order to win the war, the nation needed more labour for certain sectors of the economy.

And that labour could only be supplied by recruiting men and woman who were either not working or engaged in nonessential industries.

There was, therefore, an appeal to all men between the ages of eighteen and 61 to volunteer for war-related work . A similar request also went out to women.

Men between the requisite ages, including those already engaged in national work, were asked to register themselves at the nearest employment exchange by means of a form obtained from a post office.

When `called up’, they were asked to go to the employment exchange or other public building and meet an official who would decide whether they were better remaining in the industry in which they were at the time engaged, or whether it would be desirable in the national interest to transfer them A Stirling printing and newspaper firm received short shrift from a military tribunal when they pleaded for exemption from call-up on behalf of a linotype operator.

Military representative Capt Motherwell said the 26-year-old had been excused service on grounds he was indispensable to his employers and that their business was of national importance.

A claim on his own behalf – that he had a widowed mother to support plus three brothers serving and another waiting to be called up – was dismissed.

Capt Motherwell said while a newspaper was “in a local sense, a useful thing, it was hardly of national importance”.

Stirling had three newspapers and was a much smaller community than a town of 55,000 in Dunbartonshire where the editor and reporter of the only paper was taken away for military service.

The captain argued that the Stirling firm had five men of military age out of 10 male employees and two apprentices, “which was rather a high proportion”.

A member of the firm said they only had three men of military age and were left with a staff of four men to carry out the work of the 16 employees they had when war broke out.

The linotype operator was needed if the firm was to continue to trade as, apart from newspaper publication, they also printed the minutes of meetings of public bodies.

However, the arguments of the military representative won the backing of the tribunal and the man’s exemption from call-up was withdrawn.

*** Meanwhile, the Observer reported that Stirling Military Tribunal had, at the request of the military authorities, reconsidered the cases of 20 men previously granted conditional exemption. Only one was obtained for service and that individual insisted reporters covering the tribunal be “dispersed” when his case was discussed.

It was, said the Observer, the only time in the last 12 months that the press had been barred from proceedings. A fact not lost on tribunal members, was that the man in question was himself employed in a newspaper office. “He evidently thought he knew the reporters and was taking no risks,” said the Observer.