The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1938. DANGEROUS AMATEURISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1938, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1938. DANGEROUS AMATEURISM.

For the cause that lack* asnist-ancn. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

It is three and a halt' years since the National Government in Britain announced its determination to build up tin- country's defence forces. The nation airreed that there was need, and that the cor-t, though irreat, must he borne. .Money \v;i> poured out without stint, and continually Ministers claimed that sat is factory progress was being made. At first the (iovernment under-estimated the strength of the new (iennany, and particularly the German Air Force, but eventually Mr. Baldwin was obliged to admit in effect that Mr. Churchill's information was more accurate than the (lovernment's. So the programme was revised, and assurances were given that it was being carried out at accelerated speed. It was revised and accelerated a«?ain after the invasion of Austria la-t March. Anyone might have expected that, if an emergency came it would find Britain's defences reasonably adequate. But when the emergency came, in the last day.-, of September, it revealed —to use the words of a Ix>ndon newspaper which seldoms criticises the Government — "terrible deficiencies."

The deficiencies were most apparent in Anti-aircraft defences. According to one responsible statement, whereas there were at the end of the Great War 4SO guns defending London, at the end of last September there were no more than 100. When the crisis came it was hastily arrangedj for lack of proper weapons to combat low-flying raiders, to employ ordinary light machine-guns and old naval guns. Moreover, the men to man the defences, the territorials, had to be called from offices, shops and factories. It had been expected that they could be in position, with equipment, in much less than 24 hours; actually, it seems, the majority were in position within that time —and they were discovering serious defects in their equipment. As for the protection of the civil population, the crisis caught the authorities in various stages of unpreparedness. A million volunteers had been needed for training as wardens, but the number trained was far short of it. True, there were crowds of eleventh-hour volunteers, leading to sentimental conclusions that " the spirit was there," but these were of course unfamiliar with the duties required of them. They were, at best, inefficient helpers.

It would be inappropriate for persons not rejsident # in England to criticise her unpreparedness, but it is legitimate to consider one factor to which it may be attributed. That factor, undoubtedly, is the idea that war is a game which amateurs, though they may start at a disadvantage, can always win. The painful process of overcoming the initial disadvantages of amateurism is eovered by the use of that most dangerous phrase in the English language — "muddling through." The idea that adequate defence can be improvised, or completed, after war has begun has become fixed because in the past it has been possible to do it behind the sure shield of the Navy, which is a trained professional organisation. But now, because of the development of the bombing 'plane, the idea of improvisation, of amateurism, is obsolete, its persistence dangerous. Yet it persists in England, and undoubtedly it persists in New Zealand. Here it is encouraged by the memory that the N.Z.E.F. consisted of citizen soldiers, most of whom were trained after war broke out, and they acquitted themselves splendidly. But to reason that what was possible in 1914 is possible .now is dangerous. The situation of possible enemies, the relative strength of the Royal Navv, the nature of modern armaments—all are different. Above all, the time factor is different. If an emergency came there would be no lack of volunteers, just as there was none in London. But to-day? The Territorial Force is still 1000 short of its meagre establishment of 9000, and the Minister of Defence, in announcing that there were 575 recruits in October, had to I add that there were also 219 discharges. I