BARRACK ROOM TO TREASURY BENCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13692, 7 March 1908, Page 5 (Supplement)

BARRACK ROOM TO TREASURY BENCH.

DR. MACNAMARA'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. Da. Macnamara had an appreciative audience when he addressed the boys of the Duke of York's Royal Military School, at Chelsea. Many Chelsea pensioners were present, and a huge Union Jack formed the background. The following arc extracts from Dr. Macnamara's story: — "On August 23, 1861, I was born in the barracks at Montreal. My earliest and most vivid recollections are of the great, kindly, generous, tender-hearted men who fought at the Alma, at Balaclava, at Inkerman, and before Sebastopol. I didn't go to school in Canada. 1 wandered about the barrack square, the ball alley, the cookhouse, the barrack rooms, and the guardroom and its cells. The guard-room and the cells always had a great fascination for mc. '* I recall the journey home. Once we were battened down because of bad weather. 1 remember declining to go to my bunk without my toy drum and rifle and bayonet. If we went down, they at any rate would go with me. '" We went to Pembroke 'Dock when we reached home, and there I went to school really for the first time. It was a little army school, and I remember an incident that made a profound impression on me. One afternoon 1 played truant, Jt was the. first time. That afternoon my mother eftllcd at the school to ask if 1 could come out early, as she wanted to take mo to a tea-party. When the incident was closed I argued that it was silly to play truant with the chance of missing a teaparty. For that reason—and another which 1 needn't dwell uponl never played truant again. It scarcely seemed good enough." Subsequently (a removal was made to Exeter, where " a teacher they made me. At first I was a monitor at, I think, a shilling a week. Afterwards I was apprenticed as a pupil teacher for rive years. For a time I hated the line they had larked out for me very cordially indeed. 1 wanted to be a soldier. I knew every uniform in the army; could say pages of the thillbook by heart, knew the nicknames of most of the regiments, and could blow the regimental and other bugle calls. DR. MACNAMARA'S mascot. " For a time I nursed a more or Jess silent revolt. But fortunately I soon got over that, and put my back into the work placed in my hands. My experience of life is that half the world fails because they spend their time thinking how much better they could have done something else. " Naturally, 1 am very proud to wear the King's uniform as a Minister of the Crown, as you will readily understand. But I am more proud of being rfie son of a man who fought in the trenches before Sebastopol as a private soldier. My father's medals are among my dearest possessions, and fixed to my desk, as a sort of mascot, are two magic brass figures47the old ' Shako' regimental badge. » :

"Well, it- is a rather long and rugged way up from the barrack room to the Treasury Bench, and you may want to know how I- managed to get there. I don't believe in the soldier who joins the army determined to be a field-marshal. I think he ought to have a fair and full chance of becaming a field-marshal, especially if he is a military genius, because his country has need of him. But he mustn't join the ranks determined to be a field-marshal. If ho does, he will always be tempted to subordinate his immediate duty to Iris own ultimate personal aims; he will be inconsiderate of the feelings of others, certainly selfish, and probably unscrupulous.

"When you get your first lance-corporal's stripe don't be always thinking about how you can get the full corporal's two stripes. Simply determine to be the most hard-fork-ing, honest, loyal lance-corporal the British army has ever seen, and leave the matter there. And never be downhearted about not being clever., It is the clever man who so often fails."