Evening Post. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1914.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 93, 16 October 1914, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1914.

A SWORD OF HONOUR The presentation yesterday of a sword of honour to the Commandant of the !New Zealand Forces was a compliment ■which the vast majority of the people of this country believe to be thorougjtJy ■well deserved, and it has appropriately occurred at a time when their appreciation of his services has reached its •climax. The reason why the preparation for war was so grossly neglected in this country for the space of about a generation was that after the Maoris had ceased to give trouble war seemed no longer of any serious concern to a community so far removed from the possibility of any external danger., Tha Mother Country, with its powerful neighbours armed to the teeth and its Empire stretching all ovei the world, certainly needed a navy for its protection, and possibly an army, too. But in these fortunate islands, severed by so rea*ny thousand miles of ocean from the fleets and armies of the Old World, what ne*d could there be for worrying about war r If all the probabilities /were violated and some foreign nation should i h»Kc the bjid taatg to- attsm^ io iroMfelfl

us, was not the all-powerful navy of Great Britain available for our protection? Such wa3 the lazy logic of those lotus-eating days, but the world has marched far since then, and we have had to march with it. We have passed froiri infancy and tutelage to the verge of manhood and self-reliance, and we have realised the existence of responsibilities and dangers to which in those days we were absolutely blind. It was tbe Boer* war that first impressed New Zealand with a sense of its responsibility to the Empire and a clear recognition of its power to help. On the other hand, the dangers of the position were brought home to us by the rapid rise of Germany and Japan and the loss by Britain of that unchallengeable naval superiority which she had 'enjoyed, except for one dubious interval, since the Battle of Trafalgar. It is interesting to recall now that it was the German peril as revealed in the debate on the British Na-vy Estimates of 1909 that converted this country to a faith in compulsory military training. Germany began a. vital part of our education by teaching us to take defence seriously and vo put it on a basis as wide as the democracy itself. And it is Germany that is now putting the finishing touches on our military education, as she has learned in part at Apia, and may yet learn in larger characters on a wid^r field. ' In acknowledging the presentation that was made to him yesterday, General Godley made the happy remark that, before arriving in New Zealand, he had made up his mind to try to identify the i Army with the people of this country. j It is quite clear that since his arrival he has consistently kept that ideal in view, and it is a pleasure to be able to record the very large measure of »ucces3 that he has achieved. Military methods and democratic methods are usually very different things. The military man, who has been made by discipline and lives for discipline, has a tendency to get to loggerheads with the democratic spirit, especially in a young country where, unchecked by the restraints of tradition and custom which operate so strongly in older societies, the democratic spirit is aptto run riot. This j was the most obvious danger to be ! feared from the appointment of an Imj perial officer to take charge of the initiation of so critical an experiment as the j subjection of our young men, willy-nilly, Ito military discipline. A martinet would I have damned it at the outset, but even j the most frenzied of anti-militarists in J those " old, forgotten, far-off " days, j when there were still a few anii-mili-i tarists in the land, never mistook General Godley for a martinet. Their complaint against him has been exactly of the opposite kind. The Commandant has been so abominably pleasant to everybody that he has glozed" over the vices of a tyrannical system and made it quite presentable— such has been the anti-militarist view, and an officer who is at the same time known to those whom he commands as a strict disciplinarian cannot ask for a higher encomium. Wise leadership and management, a ready response from the young citizen soldier, and a strong support from public aentiment are the three conditions which have co-operated to make the success of New Zealand's experiment. The completion without a hitch of the preparations of the last two months is i evidence of the reality of that success, | and the country is satisfied that, if the occasion arises, General Godley and his men will satisfy on the battlefield the ultimate test of the military art just as well as they have succeeded in the preliminary stages.