Compulsory Military Training.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 839, 27 March 1909, Page 2

Compulsory Military Training.

The public meeting held last evening, although not largely attended, was almost unanimous in the desire that some better system of enlisting the sympathies of the great majority of the permanent residents of the dominion in a more universal system of training was necessary to secure the efficient protection of our shores from foreign aggression, and there can be no question but that it was on the right track. The encouragement of rifle clubs is not likely to injure volunteering as some folks fear, and the sooner the restrictions are remov- ' ed on the development of these useful adjuncts to our defence forces the better it will be for our system of defence. We doubt whether any obstacles would be put in the way of their employees obtaining the neuessary training by the employers of the district, but it must be remembered that there is a limit to the gifts the latter can make to the public, and that limit is reached when a business is not able to bear the strain. The Arbitration Act has done so much to reduce employers to a condition closely bordering on slavery, that it is almost impossible for many of them to weather the financial stress and storm under the best conditions, and if they have to add to their miseries the employment of extra hands so that their men may put in several weeks a year iji being given military training, it would be as well to haii'l over their businesses to the State to carry on for the amelioration of the woes of humanity. It is not too much to ask that the employees 'should bear a share of the loss of time necessarily involved in a universal system of training, and that could be done by making it compulsorily for some of the ordinary holi-day-time to be utili^d for that purpose.