MILITARY CAMPS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18066, 5 April 1919, Page 10

MILITARY CAMPS.

THE ASHBURTON RESOLUTION. SIR JAMES ALLEN’S LETER. At the meeting of the Ashburton County Council yesterday a letter was read from Sir James Allen, Minister of Defence, in replv to the resolution which had been passed by the council on February 10, proposing the abolition of camps and condemning the system of training, which was then in force.

The Defence Minister said in his letter that he felt sure that the council had misunderstood the position, and he trusted that on reviewing the question the members would come to the conclusion that there was quite another sido to the story. If tho members were alluding to training camps for this year he desired to inform them that it was not intended to hold camps. If their resolution was intended to cover training camps in the future, then he was not in accord with it. They had no assurance that the League of Nations, if formed, would guarantee the safety of the country in the future, and it was impossible that there would be no menace to this country in the years to come from outside. A large percentage of men who went to camp wero physically unfit for military service, and he deemed it to be the duty of the Government to provide that this unfitness should not prevail in the future, and the physically fib man was more useful as an ordinary citizen that the unfit. Again, there was abundance of evidence to show that the smartness and discipline inculcated in camps brought out characteristics in those under training, which made them more efficient as workers or producers. . There were many other reasons, which he would impress on the council, to show that they had come to a wrong conclusion. If time would permit it would give him great pleasure to meet the mempers and lay his views before them on the question of defence, and tho creation of the best tvoe of citizen. It was stated that a copy of the council’s resolution had been sent out to . forty different local bodies. 1 hirteen of these bodies had approved of the resolution, ten had sent replies disapproving of the resolution, twelve others had decided to take no action, and others had postponed considerachairman expressed the opinion that the resolution should stand, ns originallv passed. To alter it now nould show weakness on the part or the council. . „ • , Mr C. Reid thought the council should be willing to receive the Minister and hear what he had to say on the matter, as there was no doubt that tho Government was fishing foi some different system of military tramin" than there was at present. Mr W. T. Lill said he thought a replv should he sent to the effect that the council had been misunderstood by tho Defence Minister. He believed in lads getting a course of physical training up to the age of sixteen but after that age the Government should not try to make soldiers of them. After some further discussion, the following motion was carried That this council, after carefully considering the letter of March 14 from the Minister of Defence, feels there is no reason’ to reconsider the resolution passed on February 7 last, seeing that the views exnres&ed in tihett resolution nnvo met with the . approval of. various county councils in the Dominion, some supporting it in its entirety and others partly. The council is, howover, quite in accord with physical training of youths in schools, but does not approve of the military aspect of the question.”