DOMINION ASSET

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 16, 18 July 1940, Page 5

DOMINION ASSET

SOUTH ISLAND MAIN TRUNK

To suggest that railway construction should be stopped again seemed to him to be very ridiculous, said Quarter-master-Sergeant E. P. Meachen (Government, Marlborough), when referring to criticism of items of Public Works expenditure. He expressed the view that if the South Island Main Trunk railway were completed today it would be one of the finest assets in the Dominion.

"Apart from the carriage of our live.

stock, and apart from the carriage of very necessary fertilisers and lime," he continued, "it would mean the conservation of a large amount of petrol, which is needed in other spheres of our economic life. Rather than retard the progress of the work on that line, I would like to see more activity if it is possible."

Mr. Meachen said he understood the steel rails required were available. If the rails could be obtained he would be inclined to put more men on so that the line could be completed as early as possible. TRAINING TERRITORIALS. The value of a knowledge of the country he had to defend or attack to a soldier was used by QuartermasterSergeant Meachen as an argument against big concentrations of Territorials for training purposes. Mr. Meachen, who served in the Great War and is a quartermaster-sergeant in the Third Echelon, said that he did not claim to be a military expert, but he knew from experience that a knowledge of the country where a soldier was was far more valuable than a knowledge of the technical names for the various parts of a rifle. What was important to the soldier was where and how to use his arms. Instead of congregating the Territorials in large camps, said Mr. Meachen, he suggested that they should be trained in their own districts. The men could learn the elementary lessons of soldiering at evening parades and could be exercised during weekends on the hills and beaches they were trained to protect. Each Territorial could get to know the countryside by heart, and if there were an attack the men could manoeuvre over the country in the dark. On the other hand, if they were congregated in camps they would spend days and days learning a lot of things that did not matter a great deal.