ATTENDANCE AT DRILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17708, 17 February 1921, Page 8

ATTENDANCE AT DRILL.

Students not exempted.

POLICY OF DEPARTMENT.

About 50 applications for exemption from military drill—the majority from, students attending evening engineering classes—came before Mr. J. W. Poynlon, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court yesterday. Only two applications were granted. Lieutenant R. S. Judson, V.C., appeared for the Defence Department, which opposed the applications. Lieutenant Judson said the department would make the same . arrangements in the case of students attending evening classes as had been made for university students. Attendance at such classes should not interfere with parades. The applications by students were refused. In the case of two commercial travellers and three" surveyors' assistants, all of whom were frequently out of the city, the magistrate refused exemption, but recommended that they apply for leave when away from "town. This course was taken in two other cases in which the applicants attended boy scout parades. The attitude of the Defence Department regarding the military training of university students and youths attending evening classes at other colleges was explained by Major Wallingford yesterday afternoon. He said these young people were the coming brains of the country, and in war they had proved to be leaders, a, great number of ex-college students having held commissions in the Great War. At present some of the students wanted to obtain exemption from military training owing to their studies. The department was opposed to that, and was not going to sanction exemptions in such cases, for these youths required military training just as much as, if not more than, anyone else, in view of the positions they would probably hold in the event of another war. Further the Defence Department was not going to grant exemptions to college students and compel only boys who were in poorer circumstances to drill. The Auckland Defence Office was willing to meet students at any time, and if they liked they could do their drill at any hour convenient to them, provided thev put in 50 hours a year. They could do the 50 hours in their long vacation, if th<>v desired. It did not matter when they did their training, but they would have to comply with" the terms of the Military Service Act, the same as other sections of the community had to do.