Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1919. THE MILITARY SYSTEM.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 3890, 3 December 1919, Page 2

Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1919. THE MILITARY SYSTEM.

0m any and overy occasion General Richardson is preaching tho gospel ot militarism, and ho is most emphatic when speaking beforo tho Oiiicer..' Club in Wellington. Thoro ho wins apr.lauso, and does not get a grip ol publio opinion, which, after ail, it is necessary to take into account whon putting down tho foundations for a n.,v or revised Bystom for which the taxpayer must pay. If the_mili.ary heads ot tho Ecteuco Department would come out on to the public platform and expound thoir gospel of compulsorily pulling our youths out of factories and offices and schools and workshops for oven ono month per year, thoy would learn a few things from the men who havo to pay, the taxation which keep, those militarists in their ornamental positions. It is all rubbish for General Richardson to go on insisting that tho voluntary system of training was a faUuro under tho test of war. Hero is a quotation from the report of tho General's latest speech to officers in Wellington: "Tho voluntary system was a failuro in most units, and did not produce efficiency. Furthermore, it was a failure in the recent war. Wo need n Territorial Force in which thoso who joined must sign an agreement to serve for a definite period and to comply with certain regulations." Has General Richardson already forgotten that the Colonials who put up the finest, feat in tho war, tho Anzac-s, wero all voluntary warriors? And tlie finest fighters on tho western front, were tlie Australians, not one of whom was a conscript. Tho axiom sti'l holda good that "a volunteer is worth three pressed men." Perfect physique make, perfect patriots—and that is all there is to fighting tho battles for freedom. It was not the lack of good fighting men that delayed the winni-g of the war sw much as the inch of efficient organisation on the part of the professional militarists in England. The war was won in 6pite of tho obstacle and handicap of the professional British officer. The supermen of the Australasian forces, the winners of the Victoria Cross, were not professional soldliers. Jacka was a grocer in a Victorian country town, Fieyberg was a Wellington dentist, Frecklington was a West Coast miner, Bassett was an Auckland bank clerk— to quote the names of only a few of our heroes. The" fact is, the professional militarist confuses the precise ability to form fours with fighting discipline, whereas it i„ physical fitness, initiation and accuracy in marksmanship that win battles. The war proved this to tho entire satisfaction of the taxpayer, and ho it is, not the professional soldier, who is to say the first and last word in our revised version of training. Ho will spend money on physical culture in our schools, but not on barracks; and on free ammunition, bst not on compulsory goose-steppintg, mark-time flapdoodlery.