Military Training

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28529, 7 March 1958, Page 26

Military Training

Sir, —In his reply to the trek dent of the Returned Service Association the Minister o f Defence (Mr Connolly) said that the question of the abolition J compulsory military training >,3 been given a prominent position in the election manifesto of th. Labour Party; in actual fact j, received five lines of fair-sized print. You could hardly call that prominent. He also said that “the president of the New Returned Services' Association wz, undertaking a series of meetings ta try to defeat what the great majority of the people in New Zealand have decided was now necessary." This is not correct certainly as regards the words “great majority.” It is a fact, ot course, that Labour became the Government; it is also a fact that more votes were cast against the Labour policy than for it, so there is no warrant for the Minister’s statement about great majority. It would be helpful if you would give again tfle figures of the referendum on compulsory mili. tary training taken in 1946. Yours, etc., 1914-18, 1939-45. March 6, 1958. [The voting at the referendum in 1949 was: for compulsory military training, 535,401; against, 152,810.—Ed., “The Press.”]