ARMY TYRANNIES.

Evening Star, Issue 25619, 20 October 1945, Page 6

ARMY TYRANNIES.

Thousands of men who have spent at least a portion of the last six years in uniform must have rubbed their eyes in astonishment when they 1 read that a senior officer proposed to lead a orusade for reforms and the elimination of what he called " the tyrannies of little things in army life." Memories must have returned to the shock of those early days in tho forces when men realised the loss of such fundamental things as .individual liberty and the right to think for themselves, and the cumulative effect of the impact of i-ules apparently designed merely to irritate. Tho grousing ranker has usually assumed that all those unexplainable peculiarities of army discipline have been introduced by the " brass hats " to assert their superiority, and for one of the hierarchy to call for changes will upset that longheld belief. Tho fact probably is that army rules date back to the days when adventurous ne'er-do-wells and the victims of the pressgang formed the bulk of Britain's soldiers, and a tight rein had to be kept on them to ensure. that they could be controlled between periods of action. With the lifting of standards of education and the acquisition of a more sedate code of behaviour rigid army discipline of the old type has become not merely unnecessary but undesirable, and Majorgeneral Barrowclough probably voiced the opinions of many officers when he advocated changes. It may seem strange that such demands should come from within the New Zealand army, which is probably as democratic as any in the world, or in the British Empire. Most of tho Dominion troops who fought in the Middle East side by side with tho forces from other countries counted themselves fortunate in the greater amount of liberty they enjoyed and the less exacting nature of the discipline imposed on them. Some who icame under tho hectoring instructors

of the old scliool from other armies could measure the differences in disciplinary standards, but it could not be said that the New Zealand soldiers fought worse because they were less rigorously controlled. Under modern conditions the army draws all classes of civilians into its ranks in war time, and reduces them all to a common denominator. The professional or business man who has enjoyed considerable authority in civil life may find himself in the ranks obeying the orders of a man far below him in financial and social standing. With these sudden changes in living standards it is small wonder that many men feel themselves ill used. But in war only the necessities of the occasion are observed, and the amount that can be done to make army life more bearable is limited.

For all its disadvantages, the army offers a comradeship which may not found elsewhere. Two centuries before the birth of Christ a shrewd Greek philosopher ohserved that " the army is a school in which the niggardly become generous and the generous prodigal." Where death lurks round the corner the miser has little cause to hoard. But if army life brings to the surface some ennobling qualities, it is also true, as Wordsworth said, that " where tyranny prevails, virtue languishes and pleasure fails." General Barrowclough will probably have the support of thousands of men who havo recently had army experience for his campaign for a better deal for the common soldier.