COMPULSORY TRAINING

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 119, 21 May 1914, Page 7

COMPULSORY TRAINING

INSUFFICIENT ALLOWANCES MADJ2 BY CEITICS. PEOPLE CAREFULLY MISINt FORMED. (Received May 21, B.d£ a.m.) t SYDNEY, This Day. Sir tan Hamilton, dealing with tho subject of compulsory training, cays ;— "It is no use pretending that Cudet training has already justified itself as a full substitute for prolonged adult recruit training. Insufficient allowances are mad© by critics for tho difficulties inevitable from the inauguration of an original scheme, but the difficulties will grow less each year." He adds-, "tf the Empire understood thp full of the Australian experimeiit, prayers would be continually offered for its sue* cess; but since most people in tho Northern Hemisphere have been carefully misinformed by interested fanatics. Australians will have to trust to their own good sense to pull the business through. With courage and perseverance, they may yot be able to boast that they showed the way to tho great military Powers to rake powerful armies with a minimum tax on the priceless time of the adult male worker. "The Australian soldier ie very amenable to discipline. The best assets of an army to-day are soldierlike spirit and intelligence and wiry frames of the rank and filo." Sir tan utrongly advocates the.' forma» tion and development of military aviatipn, and euggeftte a pension scheme for tine permanent forcee. • Asiatics and, europeans. possible battle-ground. spiced~leport. (lIV TELEQIUPH— PRESS ASSOMATtON.) NEW PLYMOUTH, 20th May. General Sir lan Hamilton and staff, after inspecting the review of Senior Cadets,* were entertained at dinner. They afterwards visited the veterans' function, where, in a speech in reply to the toast of his health, Sir lan Hamilton said that he was pleased with the work of the Cadets in Taranaki and in New Zealand generally. Touching on his visit to South Africa two years ago ho said that the- war had helped to sweep away old racial bitterness, which would never return. The Boers, who formerly avoided Natal as being purely British, now visited it frequently as a seaside ■resort. In his speech this morning, he* referred to the recent cablegram from Tokio concerning his reported remarks in Auckland that tho Pacific would be a possible battle-ground between Asiatics and Europeans. He said he was unfortunate in incurring the displeasure of certain organs of the press of tho allied Powers, but the report on winch tho displeasure was based must have been 6piced in crossing tho Tropics. Ho had merely put a hypothetical case, that seemed sound theory, to- the effect thab as the nations grew bigger and wars less frequent, bwt more terrible, one could imagine a period when Empires would comprise great continents, and such a Continental Empire might have to face contests in arms or economics, and he had said that New Zealand would do well to be prepared, and \vm preparing for the millennium or Armagcddonl In nn interview with a News reporter ho said he had given no foundation for the rumour that he would condemn the Territorial system, as published in the Napier press. No; report would escapehim J>ill he had his boot or^tho gangway "of the boat which took him from New Zealand.