MILITARY TRAINING.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17452, 12 May 1922, Page 3

MILITARY TRAINING.

NEW SYSTEM DETAILED.

At a meeting of the general committee of the Wellington Industrial Association on Tuesday evening Captain Jennings, of the Defenco Department, attended and explained the proposeu new scheme for military training as applied to Wellington. A suggestion by tho Government that the employers should pay their employees during the week they are undergoing the training was not favourably received. Captain Jennings explained- that the Defence Department wanted tho employers to consent with good grace to havo their employees, from lb to 21 years of age, go into camp from ono Saturday to the following Saturday —a full week. The youths are to bo taken from town, by tiie steamer Janie Seddon to Fort "Dorset evory morning at eight o'clock during that week, the trainees' taking their own rations and returning to town at five o'olock each evening. It was expected that tho employers would pay each youth his usual wages whilst attending camp. Tho members of the Industrial Association Committee, Captain Jennings said, would fully realiso tho advantages to be gained by the proposed method of holding the week's camp as compared •with tho past system of daylight and evening parades. Ho assorted that it was quite impossible under the old system to get the youths past the rudiniontary stage of training, but in the camp tlioy could bo instructed in actual field work. On tho Sunday a church parade would bo held. It was proposed to introduce tlio new system next month, but tho Defence Department recognised that it was unreasonable to expect the employers to consent to all their employees of the ago for military training to go into camp simultaneously therefore it was planned t 0 hold eight camps during the year. The committee of the Industrial Association expressed themselves of tho opinion that, while approving of tho proposed scheme, the Government should pay tho trainees for the time spent in tne camps, as in the past.