UNIVERSAL TRAINING BY COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 230, 26 September 1906, Page 3

UNIVERSAL TRAINING BY COMPULSORY SERVICE.

■ (By DEFENDER.) No. 11. There are few things so extraordinary as tlie way in which we AngloSaxons deal with matters of \-ital importance to our future. Were it not tragic, it would be laughable to Witch our governments play ninepins with problems of first importance. In ]8o!J we adopted Free Trade, and threw open our doors to foreign competition. We proposed that Europe should follow our lead, and prophesied that siie would. But Europe, while acknowledging our magnanimity, preferred to be wise, and declined. To-day we aro retrenching our military strength, :,nd talk or the general disarmament of Europe, and we are telling ourselves that Europe will follow our lead; she knows what she is about, and .so shall we when we have burnt our fingers. In English lethargy lies the weak spot of the Empire. Years of valuable lives, the best energies and brain power of the thinking men of our day are being expended, and often it seems" vainly, in trying to rouse the nation to its position in tlie count of war. Kipling in " The Islanders,' puts the situation into powerful words, and the indignant rebuke his words convey is richly deserved. ■No one can read the verses beginning— "Fenced' by your careful fathers, ringed by your leaden sens, Lon? did ye wake in quiet, and long lie down sit ease, Till ye said of strife, 'What is it?' of the sword. 'It is far from our ken:" Till ye make ;i sport of your shrunken hosts, ami a toy of your armed men." without a feeling of anxiety for the future. Too truthfully ho accused the nation of witless learning and idle sport, of begrudging men and country for training purposes, of forcing those who have the management of Army and Defence affairs, to go to the slums and tlie highways for Tommy Atkins, instead of taking men from the strong and gritty portions of the population. Kipling accuses the nation of expecting magnificent results from men who practically don't know what war means, of dishonouring and handicapping men who voluntarily have devoted their means and leisure hours to volunteering. As to the Army itself, she has trained it in barrack squares instead of on the hillside and in open country. Kipling has for years voiced the feelings of the soldier and his needs, an'i has pleaded his cause again and again. Like a true poet he has put into verso the unspoken feelings of men, and has unflinchingly flung the truth in the face of the public. "Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie. To saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let lie time go by; rd'.e — openly idle -- in the lie of the forespent line. rdl<\ except for your boasting — and what is your boasting worth, If ye grudge n year of service to the lordliest life on earth?" Kipling wrote this of the situation in England, but the words might have been written for us in Xew Zealand, we are letting- the months go by just as carelessly, just as idly, and as unthinkingly as they are doing in the Mother Country. By our voluntary system we do not get the flower of the nation, for sport claims the pick of our men; our vtolunleer ranks do not contain the athletes of the country, but too often arc compopri!, to a largo extent, of men of weedy physique, men who live indoor live*, and who cannot compare physically with their brothers of the field, or with men who play football, cricket, polo, or with hunting men. It is the same with the army iv England—the recruit is very, very far below the average standard of the nation in physique. The voluntary system in force in England for the regular army is the most expensive possible and produces the worst material. With an Empire scattered over the whole globe of course there must always be a sufficient standing army recruited nil tlie voluntary system. Men who have to go on foreign service must be enlisted for a term of years, and this will necessarily make that portion of the army very expensive compared with a continental army., as it has to offer special inducements to make men enlist and leave other occupations, besides besides which the cost of transport and provision of various clothes for various climates, etc., etc. For foreign service this is necessary and inevitable, but the whole of the remainder of the Imperial and colonial forces should be obtained by compulsory service. If service is compulsory it is not. necessary to offer special inducements to men to forego or leave other employment, such as high pa.y, extra comforts and luxuries, billiard and reading rooms. Nor is it necessary to pay high saJa-ries to obtain the best medical men and veterinary surgeons, the best engineers and artisans as is the case to-day in the British army. By the voluntary system high salaries must be paid. By compulsory service these highly paid men would have to serve, aud would be only too glad to be employed at their own work. These are some of the reasons why the British army, as constituted at present, is so enormously expensive in comparison with , other armies. Another great drawback in the present system is its.

limited choice of officers. By -the abolition of the purchase system it was hoped that capability -would take the place of incompetence among officers, but only in a limited degree has this taken place, because, however capable a man maj- be, an officer cannot live on his pay in many regiments. Therefore officers are largely drawn from the class which can afford to hold commissions. Yet the pay of the officers in the British army, anyway in the higher ranks, is much greater than the pay of the permanent staff officers in New" Zealand, and the latter hare no pension or any compensation or retiring allowance whatever, besides which, living in New Zealand is more expensive fhan in England. The question of the training of officers is of the utmost importance to us in New Zealand, for however good men may be in the field, they are practically useless if badly led. Lord Roberts speaking of battles of the present day, says, that 'once fighting begins the immediate control of the troops actually engaged passes out of the hands of the officers in supreme command .... and must be left to captains of companies and to section leaders, upon whom a far greater responsibility devolves than formerly. As a consequence, it is essential that their intelligence, self-reliance and power of leading- should be on a higher levej than was necessary in the (lays of short ranges and close formation." Lord Roberts urges the discipline of self-reliance, of developing, not repressing intelligence, "and of making the intelligence of the men "contribute to the efficient unity of the whole, of enlisting the zeal of the'private as much as that of the officer." Referring to the importance of the training of officers, he saya: "' It must not be overlooked that while soldiers can be made fit for active service with comparatively short training. J officers • cannot bo improvised. . . The : officer must add to dash and self-sacn I fice, courage and power of leadership the thoroughness of a well-trained professional in military science. A terrible lesson awaits the nation whose soldiers find themselves opposed to equally brave but better trained opponents on the field of battle. No amount of money, no national sacrifices will then avail, foi modern warfare moves fast and time lost in peace can never be made up again during the stress of a campaign. I believe it is the bounden duty of the State to sec that every able-bodied man in this country . . . undergoes some kin<3 of military training .... sufficient tc enable him to shoot straight and carry out simple , orders. I believe such a training would be of the greatest benefit to the nation, inculcating a spirit of sober self-reliance in the individual; and raising the standard of physical efficiency.* . The necessity of obtaining capable officers must be fully understood, for it cannot be emphasised too much, for what a ship's captain is to the crew, an oflicev is in a greater degree to his men. All the great soldiers of history recognised the importance of able officers. Cromwell, in advising the. leader of the Parliament Army on reorganisation in 1645, told him to be careful what captains of horse he chose. The value oi leadership cannot be overrated, but. except in rare cases, great victories have not been won by recruits, however well led. All the great military leaders knew the value of discipline and drill; Napoleon won his victories by the aid of soldiers perfected in training, and inured to hardships by continuous service, and fired in spirit by a fervour of enthusiasm i for their general. Cromwell made his ' famous " Ironsides ' from simple- country i farmers—by ceaseless drill and discipline and an almost fanatical spirit of patriotism, he produced a force of nieu against whom the royal Stuart armies could not stand, a forte, which for capability and discipline will be famous for all time. Sehouiberg, the greatest soldier of his day, knew the value of training, and when he was sent to Ireland by William 111. in 1689 to crush a rebellion, the bulk of his force was made up of raw recruits, just such as we should have if we were called upon to-day to defend this colony, Sehomberg knew his men were uiterlv incapable of meeting heavy odds in the field, so as soon as possible he weni into winter quarters and apparently took up a position of " masterly inactivity." In reality he patiently and unceasingly drilled his recruits for sis months, day and night. In the spring he opened the campaign and his once "raw recruits won the battle of the Boyne, But in both the above cases time was needed to turn two ignorant mobs oi men into soldiers. Months were expended in rigorous training, and in oui case here, months would be needed before we should be sufficiently accustomed jto arms to be of any real use in the hour o- need. We should be in an entirely different position if every man of us were trained for a short period each year; then we should, as a whole, be. conversant enough with our duties to be of some value in defence. Perhaps no country in the world affords such an example of the need of training as America did in the war between North and South. Most of her catastrophes occurred because her troops were undrilled green civilians and agriculturalists, suddenly called to j arms. The horrors and mistakes of the I war would have been greatly lessI ened if the armies had known their I work. The population was willinp ! enough, for to Lincoln's call for -75.00 C ' troops. 300,000 men responded, and here Un New Zealand we should respond just ifts heartily, once the war fever came • upon us. but we should wade through j blood and sickness and disaster, just as ! America did, because of our incompetj erjep. The time of peace is the time in which to prepare for war, and this is a truth which cannot be emphasised too much. Now is the time to bring in compulsory service for a short yearly period, and now is the time in which we can prepare in a practical way for war, or an invasion, bo it white or yellow people. The proximity of Eastern Asia to Australasia must always be a menace to us, and unless we become strong enough to defend ourselves before yellow races are ready to attack us. we must prepared to "dig spuds for other people."