NAVAL TRAINING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19917, 10 April 1928, Page 10

NAVAL TRAINING.

AUSTRALIAN. POLICY. CRITICISM OF SYSTEM. [from our own correspondent.] SYDNEY. March 29. A belief seems to be growing throughout the Commonwealth that the Federal authorities made a sorious blunder when they decided some time ago, to abolish the recruiting of'boys for the navy. At the time the decision was made there were many protests,, but they fell on deaf ears. Now the Navy League has succeeded in renewing interest in the matter and has entered upon a campaign having for its object a return to the old order of things. It was in July, 1926, that the Minister of Defence announced the decision of the Government to abandon a system which had given such good results. For the future the navy was to be recruited with young men of the age of 19, who would bo given a preliminary three months' course of training instead of tho twelve months' course which had previously obtained. Despite the opposition of nearly everyone competent to advise him; and despite, too, the lessons which the experiences of the British naval authorities should have taught, the minister persisted, with the result that last year the old training ship went out of commission. The ship has since been sold for a few hundred'pounds and leads a useless existence in one of the many bays of Sydney harbour, no longer buzzing with the life and laughter of young recruits. And so, the personel of the Australian fleet is being maintained as best it can by the 19-year-old recruits against whom many objections have been raised by those who have made a careful study of tho position. It is explained that they are past tho plastic age; they are not nearly so conformable to discipline; many of them come to the navy as a last resort after proving incompetent ashore. But the main objection to the system is not so much the personality of the recruits as the impossibility of giving them the necessary preliminary training. What could be well done in twelve months, and was well done, cannot be done in three. Under the new system, the recruits must be drafted into the ships of the navy, lacking much of the efficiency which is so essential to the proper conduct of the service. Finally the new method removes altogether the fine incentive, which the old method enjoyed, of promotion to warrant or commission rank. It is impossible for a young man entering the service at the age of 19 years on the lowest runjj; of the ladder ever to climb to such heights; and this impossibility, it is held, furnished one of.the strongest argu-. ments for the abandonment of the neyr system. The reason given for the change was that the old system was too expensive—prohibitive fras the term employed by the Minister of Defence who pointed to the' huge expenditure which had been authorised for tho building of ships for tho navy. What is the use of building ships, it has been asked, if proper steps are not taken to see that they are efficiently manned ? The new system has had but a brief trial and the results are regarded as unsatisfactory. Hence the agitation for a return to boy recruiting.