THE New Zealand Herald AMD DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1930. DEFENCE SYSTEM WRECKED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20618, 17 July 1930, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AMD DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1930. DEFENCE SYSTEM WRECKED.

Rumouhs of change and rumours of reduction in New Zealand's Bystem of military training have long been rife. Now, suddenly, and almost accidentally, it is revealed that the whole organisation is to be shattered, leaving a skeleton structure like the comic opera conception of an army in a South American republic—except that in New Zealand the logical limit of all officers and non-commissioned officers, without any private soldiers, is to be reached. The information comes by devious ways. The Minister of Defence admitted in the House yesterday that military training had been suspended for the present, but declined to take members any further into his confidence. A telegram from Napier says it is understood all territorial and cadet training in that district is to cease for one year, and adds that equipment is already being returned. The Herald is able to go further, to tell the public what is afoot, and what a sorry remnant is to be left of the citizen forces painstakingly and devotedly built up over a term of more than 20 years, the organisation which rendered possible the speedy mobilisation and despatch of the Expeditionary Force, which helped so powerfully in its steady reinforcement to the end of the war. The blow has already fallen, the process of disintegration is at work. A substantial economy is claimed for the change. No doubt there will be an effective saving. The Government is expected to economise. Nobody expected the Defence Department to escape the pruning process. Can it be proved, on the other hand, that the Government had any mandate to wreck the land forces of the Dominion completely as it is doing, or to issue its decrees effecting that purpose without giving the country an inkling of what was contemplated? The new cadre system to be substituted for the territorial forces leaves two portions of the old organisation intact, one at each end of the scale, the staff and permanent establishment, and the secondary school cadets. Between them is to stand a full staff of 600 officers and 2000 warrant and non-commissioned officers of the territorial forces, to be trained in brigade camps. With that understood, the effects of the new order can be considered. If there are to be any land forces at all, there must be a staff. An army cannot operate without one, and in the nature of things it must be composed of permanently appointed professional soldiers. It is the indispensable nucleus for mobilisation, final training and final employment of a citizen army in time of emergency. In peace it is the inspiration of and supplies expert

direction for training. The justification of the pre-war staff was the part it played in building up the Expeditionary Force, and in working with it in action. Given similar circumstances, with similar material lying at hand, it cannot be doubted the present staff would fill the breach in the same way. But if an army without a staff is helpless, a complete staff without an army is likely to be unemployed a good portion of its time. The present permanent establishment has been built up lai-gely to meet the needs of a territorial force of well-defined strength. When that force hands in its equipment and demobilises—for that is what is happening despite the talk of suspending operations for a year—how will the staff, remaining at its old strength, find occupation? At the other end of the system the secondary school cadets, easily recruited, already under constant discipline, the natural source of future officers and non-commissioned officers, are to remain in training. This is a useful section to be saved from the universal dismantling, but it is not enough to suggest that a citizen force is to continue in existence. Incidentally, the parents of these boys would be justified in asking why there has been cast on them alone an obligation supposed hitherto to rest on the whole young manhood of the nation. The territorial army is to be induced to a skeleton organisation of COO officers, and 2000 warrant and non-commissioned officers. The Defence Department presumably contemplates retaining the required quota from those already holding those ranks. How is the selection to be made? The department, no doubt, would like to choose, but it has no hold over a considerable proportion, who have long passed the age of compulsory service, but continue with their units from pure enthusiasm. There will remain little incentive to be enthusiastic, and the best of the commissioned and non-commissioned ranks may easily prove unavailable when it comes to the point. Once the number has been secured, what will be the value of the work they can do? They can study their manuals, cram their minds with theory, drill one another as opportunity offers, but they cannot meet and deal with tho ! numberless problems that arise when they have the rank and file to work upon. They will gain no cxperienco in handling men, and little in the detail of their duties. Moreover, though the importance of officer and non-commissioned officer need not be minimised, the backbone of every army is the man in the ranks, the gunner, the trooper, the sapper, tho private of the infantry and other services. A citizen force without him is not even an army in name. It follows, therefore, that this plan for reducing tho territorial establishment to a sketchy outline means wrecking the defence system of New Zealand Once it is gone, to rebuild it will

not be a matter of days or months, but of years. The speedy mobilisation and training of the Expeditionary Force supports this view. It does not disprove it, as is sometimes suggested, because, fortunately, the territorial army existed when the war came. Remembering this, the country has every right to ask what mandate the Government has to wreck the system surreptitiously, even if it is authorised to impose economy on it as on every other department of State.