MILITARY TRAINING

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22109, 3 June 1937, Page 8

MILITARY TRAINING

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —These pacifist cranks—of whom a good few find a sounding board in your correspondence columns—make the ordinary, sensible man tired. They are violently opposed to rearmament in a world whose only guarantee of safety is adequate armament. They are bitterly opposed to the military training of youth, though apart from the value of such training as a safety guarantee for the safety of the country, such training Is of inestimable value in making the youth of any country athletic, self-reliant, confident, and improving them In every possible moral and physical respect. A friend of mine, returned recently from a tour of Europe, tells me that the improvement in physique, self-confidence, and manliness of the- youth of many countries he visited, is almost Inconceivable—and it has been attained by military training We all believe in peace. We all want peace, but few of us would agree to live in a lion’s den and argue the point with the lions without whip or pistol or revolver. X want peace, universal peace, with all my soul, but the world being what It is, 1 hold fast implicitly to the advice of that great soldier and Christian. Oliver Cromwell. "Trust in God, but keep your powder dry.”-Yours^|tc. LE pACIFJSTJune 1. 1937.