DEFENCE AND SPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 207, 2 September 1936, Page 6

DEFENCE AND SPORT.

COMPARISON OF NUMBERS

(To the Editor.)

Your articles on the defence of New Zealand are instructive, and the figures disturbing. You state that in 1933 (the last year referred to by you) there were 955 oflicers and 7355 other ranks enrolled in the territorial force.- One feels, however, after comparing the physique of the territorials on parade on the last King's Birthday with that of the players in our football competitions, that many of our young men who are qualified by nature as leaders in time of war are not receiving in peace the training that would fit them should war be forced upon us for what they would then regard as their duty. Can you give any figures of the numbers of young men who turn out every Saturday to play football ancl other sports? These men would doubtless enlist, as their fathers did in 1914, should another emergency arise; but many of them would have had 110 military training at all, and few apparently would have had the technical training as officers that would qualify them for the responsibility of leading our men in the field. The figures are not given in the usual books of reference, but perhaps the secretaries of the various clubs could tell us how many of their players are doing any military or naval or air training ir: their spare time. N.Z.E.F.