Officers’ Training Corps

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 204, 26 May 1938, Page 13

Officers’ Training Corps

Sir, —In ,your issue oi May 20. you publish a letter signed by "Patriot" m. the subject of an 0.T.C., and I presume that “Patriot” belongs to the class of intellectuals to which he refers in his letter.

If an officer’s job was purely administrative, then there may be quite good argument on his side, but as he must (or should) know that the real officer for active service must be a man of courage and a leader of men, would he seriously suggest that the manager of any insurance company, director of any £1,006,000 trading company, or noted - lawyer or doctor, was any more fitted for the position of an officer than, shall We say, a labourer who had risen from the ranks?

"Patriot” asks: "Can anyone imagine men who control their own business, men who hold responsible positions, professional men, etc., taking orders in toe ranks from an N.C.O. who has a onetrack mind?” He then explains what he means by a “one-track mind,” after staling that he does not infer any “snobbery,” and yet he states "the authorities ask men able (?) to hold the responsibilities ef an officer’s position to mix, perhaps for several years, with the ranks, and ends up his letter by appealing to "those patriots who consider that they have the elements of leadership and the ability to make good and efficient officers to apply to the Defence Department for admission to an 0.T.C.” I’m afraid “Patriot'’ gives us a htMclass illustration of his “one-track mind ’ and “snobbery.” but as for being a "Patriot,” I ask you? . . Should a labourer apply for admission to this O.T.C. sponsored by “Patriot.” would his application be turned down, and would the qualifications “Patriot” mentions positively entitle the applicant to admission to the O.T.C. even though he may be found wanting during his first month and get his running shoes from the 0.T.C.? u Can “Patriot” say that those officers who during the Great War went up from the ranks were in any way inferior as officers to those who got their commission before going overseas? My observations in the last dust-up certainly compel me to favour those that went up from the ranks. —I am. etc., UP FROM THE RANKS. Wellington. May 21.