MILITARY TRAINING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15899, 10 April 1912, Page 2

MILITARY TRAINING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In this morning’s “Times” one of your sub-leaders warmly eulogises a letter signed by Mrs L. M, Atkinson. Her first argument, that “ to prepare for war is the safest way to preserve peace,” is one of the most absurd of fallacies. It means that to cultivate a peacable disposition or feeling wo must be trained in the best method for killing our fellows; wo must,' in fact, do everything to encourago the blood lust inherent in human nature. Only a diseased mind can believe such an argument logical. I am an anti-militarist because I know: that wars are invariablv engineered by profit seekers, i.e.—the armament manufacturers who would soon go out of business if it were not for war preparations, the army contractors who are so' patriotic that in every modern W3r they have swindled' their countries by supplying troops with rotten meat and shoddy clothes, the newspaper proprietors to whom a war or war scaro is a harvest and the financiers who finance not only their own countrymen but the enemy as well. I know that tho members of my class (the workers) are the chief sufferers in all wars. 1 know that it is only a niattej of three or four years and another war will be impossible. Wo workers are awakening ; instead of preparing for war to insure peace wc are organising nationally and .internationally to prevent war. We will not kill one another so that a few may make fortunes. We will not transport soldiers nor feed them nor clothe them. To put it plainly, it is only a matter of a few years and a declaration of war by our rulers we will answer by folding our arms. Further, military training does not conduce to self-control (the only discipline worth while); it only teaches unquestioning obedience to superiors, a very doubtful virtue. Lastly, if military training is good for physical development why reject; all but tho physically perfect? The scheme is a farce. Just fancy, the men have almost all been in camp and out of thirty thousand only ten thousand attended. What are the authorities going to do about it? I am, etc., S. J. ROSCOE. (It would be interesting if our correspondent would explain how the newspaper proprietors, for example, make a profit out of war—Ed. “ L.T.”) TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In all the letters to your paper on the question of military training I have not seen one that believes in letting well alone. If England, under freedom, is recognised to be the leading nation on earth, why adopt the methods of nations who, under conscription can only take second place? The latter plan wouhl be to do all in our power to encourage the system that lias placed us as a nation where wo are at present. The earth is the heritago of all; but short-sighted individuals of tho Massey tvpo, when leaders of the country, sold the land

Into the hands of private individuals,] who now dictate to the people under, what conditions they shall live. Sid •Joseph Ward was rocky on the land question and he went down, as he served; for, to my thinking, the land is tli© birthright of unborn to come as the politician wno sells the land soils what does not belong to' him, but is only given in trust. When' the people come into their own there will be "no need to compel them to fight, as there- will bo nothing to fight for. Until they do let us keep to out present eystem.-I^ank