NEW ZEALAND TARS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 101, 2 May 1925, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND TARS

■"THE MORE WE GET THE

BETTER."

' There were, said Commodore Beal at a Rotary Club luncheon at Dnnedin, 234 New Zealand ratings serving in the British Navy—ls4 on the Dunedin, rts on the Philomel, and 35 in England undergoing special courses in torpedoing and gunnery, etc., and more boys were desired.

"The more help we get in this way, the better we shall be pleased," said the Commodore. "The boys we enter (from fifteen to nineteen years of age) do a preliminary course of nine months on the Philomel, and are then transferred to the Duncdin, where they are kept for a year and two months, during which time they are required to ppss four examinations. At the end of th-it time they are rated A.B. From those selected the best are sent Home to England, where they see service with the Atlantic Fleet, and then come back The first batch came back just before Earl Jelhcoe left New Zealand, and'he interviewed them. They were a fine stamp, and had earned for themselves a fine name. . A man usually serves for twelve years from the age of eighteen. He starts at a minimum wage of 49s a week, and, in addition, he is given a free kit medical attention, etc. Each year he is given twenty-eight days' leave on full pay, and an extra allowance, and at the end of the twelve years he can leave on' a. system of deferred pay, on £500 which will enable him to make a start in business. , If he volunteers to serve another ten years he can leave at the age of forty with £1000. The recruit is liable to servo in any part of the world and on any class of ship." In conclusion, Commodore Beal expressed the hope that he had shown his hearers that life in the Navy was a very great advantage to o young fellow (reports, the Dunedin "Star"). The curricul'im m the New Zealand Division constituted three months in the islands of the South Pacific, one month in a musketry course at Trentham, and the rel maming period in exercising, docking,