SUNDAY DRILL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 81, 3 April 1908, Page 3

SUNDAY DRILL.

MILITARY MEN REPLY TO CLERICS. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. The Council of the Churches having expressed disapproval of excessive drilling of volunteers in camp on the Sabbath, a "New Zealand Times' reporter interviewed several military and voluntary officers in order to ascertain their opinions on the subject. Colonel Collins, who has for so long commanded the Wellington infantry battalion, and is now finance members of the Council of Defence, was not quite sure what would be counted desecration by different persons. His experience was that, where,a large number of men were together in one body, it would tend to desecration of the Sabbath iw they were allowed to be idle. He had always given his men work to do on the Sabbath. If they had been allowed to remain idle, the probabilities were that as "Satan finds some mischief still," etc., the time spent on fitting themselves for the defence of the country might have been spent in playing cards. He wished to defend the general character of the volunteers. He was emphatic in saying that employment of the men was essential to order and discipline on Sundays. Nothing could be more harmless, in Bin opinion, than the "at homes" of volunteer companies on a Sunday afternoon, without a canteen, to which he was and always had been adverse, and had never allowed. As far as he was aware, there was no necessity to be shocked at the conduct of vohmters in camp on Sundays* Colonel Batiehop, C.M.G., officer commanding the Wellington volunteer district, said the cessation of military operations on Sunday would be impossible under conditions of war, and the spending of the best day in the week in a conscientious desire to help the country was excusable from every point of view. He earnestly hoped that clerics who were possibly really convinced that volunteer drill on Sundays was a desecration would take a greater vital interest in the defence of the country, and would try to see a little deeper than the susceptibilities of those who were apparently hurt. If clerics studied the necessity of the case, he was sure they would cease to regard work done by volunteers on Sunday as an evil.

Major Lascelles, an army officer, at present engaged in instructional work in the Dominion, summed up his opinions in these few sentences: "Those ancient Biblical generals (and they were good soldiers, too) didn't seem to knock off being soldiers on the Sabbath. When the Asiatics come, shall we be found on our knees, or shall be ready to give them a bad time? Everybody's business is to do his best for his country. It is not loyal for any class of persons to try to hamper military operations. We need all the skilled men we can get;. Sunday is a good day to train men; let us train them on Sunday. Tt is doing no one any harm, and is probably doing good, as wo may yet find out."