The Press THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1961. Rebuilding The Army

Press, Volume C, Issue 29624, 21 September 1961, Page 14

The Press THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1961. Rebuilding The Army

The most urgent defence task of the present Government is to provide enough trained soldiers for the needs of New Zealand, including its commitments to allies and friends. In South-east Asia New Zealand’s allies have adequate air and naval strength but not enough forces on the ground, though in this strategic area the properlyequipped and trained soldier is the most important factor. As a consequence of the Labour Government’s policy New Zealand is woefully short of trained soldiers. This year’s report of the Chief of the General Staff (Major-General L. W. Thornton) showed that the active strength of the New Zealand Division was approximately 35 per cent, of establishment, while soldiers efficient for the year and eligible for overseas service amounted to only 11 per cent, of establishment. The present Government has rightly placed emphasis on the building up of an efficient army. Intensive recruiting campaigns, in which substantia] inducements were offered, failed to attract sufficient strength to the regular forces and to the volunteer territorial forces. The Government has n r > alternative, therefore, to a form of compulsory training. The regular force is’ to have an establishment that the Government is confident can be maintained. Regular field units will be built up to a strength of about 3000 in five years, and there will be a static regular force of 3250, The Territorial Force will be brought up to a strength of 10,000 men, all fully effective, in four years. When fully developed the Territorial Force will consist of about one-third volunteers and about twothirds men inducted under a selective service system.

Naturally, so radical a departure as selective service will arouse interest, and perhaps controversy. It must be borne in mind.

however, that other methods have signally failed. The number of men required is not unduly large, certainly not more than the country’s resources can comfortably provide. By restricting the number to 2000 men a year the Government should be able to recruit a force of thoroughly fit. intelligent men, and at the same time provide adequate safeguards for those to whom service would be a hardship. The real question, indeed, is whether the Government proposes to take sufficient men in a sufficiently short period. Four years (for the Territorial Force) and five years (for the regular field units) are leisurely periods in which to build up the “ forces ready to go ” which, the Government believes, will be New Zealand’s qiost appropriate and useful contribution to South-east Asia’s defence. The current financial stringency has had its bearing on the Government’s plans; but there is no credit in being cheeseparing with defence. New Zealand’s claims for the consideration of its friends rest on readiness to observe moral as well as business obligations. When the Minister of Defence (Mr Eyre) addressed the annual conference of the Returned Services’ Association in June he said that, if the proportion of the national income he asked for defence was provided. New Zealand proportionately “would “still be the smallest con- “ tributor among the allies ”. Mr Eyre, who was credited with vigorously defending his advisers’ case against Treasury reluctance to provide the money, probably did not get even the proportion he asked for.