PLEASING RESULT

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 218, 10 June 1933, Page 16

PLEASING RESULT

Territorial Efficiency MINISTER’S INSPECTION Favourable comment on the keen interest shown in territorial training in the South Island was made yesterday by the Minister of Justice, Hon. J. G. Cobbe, on his return to Wellington after ten days’ tour of the principal southern centres. Mr. Cobbe, who was accompanied by the general officer commandiug the New Zealand Military Forces, Major-General W IL L. .Sin-clair-Burgess, insiiected the battalions and units of the territorial forces in the Otago and Canterbury districts. “There has had to be,” said Mr. Cobbe, “a rather heavy curtailing of the expenditure in all branches of the Defence Department. That department suffered in the closing down on expenditure in line with other State departments and their activities, but I think the Defence Department was one of the departments hardest hit. That unpalatable duty of cutting out this and that item fell on me, but it had to lie done whatever the consequences, and the pleasing result is, in spite of the wielding of the pruning knife, that the numerical strength of our forces to-day is not a mere skeleton of an army, but 75 per cent, of its total establishment, with 100 per cent, efficiency and enthusiasm which is remarkable in its spontaneity. And coupled With the curtailing of expenditure has been the change to the old system of voluntary recruiting.” The parados of territorials —men and secondary school cadets —mustered for the inspections made by the Minister and Major-General Sinclair-Burgess were described by Mr. Cobbe as inspiring and a delight to see in point of numbers aud all-round efficiency. The parades he witnessed of the cadets at the secondary schools in Dunedin, Oamaru, Timaru, and Christchurch were highly spoken of by the Minister. “At some of the schools,” he said, “apart from the military training, the boys were exceedingly efficient in other forms of drill, all of which tended to improve their physique.”