CADET PARADES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 2, 27 September 1917, Page 4

CADET PARADES

DEMAND FOR SUSPENSION. A very sore grievance is cherished by farmers in the country districts regarding the coutinuanco of occasional parades of cadets. In these days of shortage of labour the boys are of great value on the farms, and it is urged that the parades might well be suspended, especially as it so often happens that tho instructors find themselves unable to he present. Cadets leave their work to travel several miles to tho placo where tho parade is to be called, only to find on arrival that there is no instruotor to drill them. Exactly tho same allegation to this effect is mado by farmers, in different parts of New Zealand, but'the Defence Minister and.tho Defence Department have, hitherto resisted the demand for the buspension of the parades. . Mr. G. J. Anderson asked a question in the HOU6O of Representatives yesterday, m which.ho referred to tho same grievance in a part of bis district. He had received a letter from a correspondent who said that the practice was.for instructors to ring up the district at the last moment and ask the local n.c.o.'e to take oharge. This correspondent related now on one occasion the local n.c.o.'s had settled the question oi seniority by resort to fisticuffs, and after a series of vigorous bouts the victor in the tourney took the parade. Mr. Anderson-urged that tho continuance of these parades was a source of great hardship, and he asked the Minister why the.vexatious parades, which were doing no good, were allowed to continue. _ . The Minister of Defence was not m the House, and therefore did not reply ■to the question.