DEFENCE FORCE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20087, 17 November 1930, Page 10

DEFENCE FORCE.

GENERAL YOUNG'S HOPE. REGIMENTAL REUNION. :?sus tssociATios Tir.iosj.it.) WELLINGTON", November 16. Remarking that his soldiering was cow coming to a close, Majcr-Gennral Young, G.0.C., N'ew Zeaiana Fortes when speaking at the annual reunion of the Wellington Regiment, N.Z.E.F., last evening, said it was hiE great wish to "leave a'good show behind him in the way of a permanent defence force before he retired from his present Tiositicn. "I have r.over been quick at putting up the 8.0.5.," General Young said "and I am not going to put it up, yet if I do X know there will be many who will stand bj* me. I am coming close to the end of my soldiering. I would like to leave a good show behind mi, and six or seven months ago I could have said that was the position. I must leave behind me a good permanent force, and if I do that, then New Zealand will be all right whatever may happen. "I would like you in your general talk," he concluded, ''to emphasise that one of the best things you can have if you cannot have a territorial force, is a good permanent force that can get out at the sound of the first gun." Reference to the present position of the Defence Forces was also made by several other speakers during the evening.

'' The name you have given the regiment should still be earried on," said Colonel G. H. Hall, ex-president of the "Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association, vrhen proposing the toast of "The Regiment." It was indeed greatly to be regretted that those who had given service and had done so much in training in the old days now saw before thein a state of affairs that would provide no adequate defence force in the future. "It behoves us to rally round and help to make the defence scheme an efficient one in every way," he said, adding that if he were a young man and were able to do so he would start a company tomorrow. The training those present and others in a similar position had gone through would be lost to those following on for the next tea or fifteen years. In reply to the toast. Colonel W. H. Cunningham, D.5.0., said he was proud to assure the gathering that the territorial battalions were proud of the traditions that had been earried on and handed down by those who had fought with the regiment in the war. Among those present at the gathering were Lieutenant-Colonel Avery, C.M.G.. D.5.0.. president of the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association, Lieutenant-Colonel Cunningham, D.5.0., and three of the seven New Zealanders who won the Y.C. in the war—Captain L. W. Andrew and Lieutenants J. G. Grant and G. Frickleton.