The N.Z. Times WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1910. A RIDICULOUS PROPOSAL

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7024, 12 January 1910, Page 4

The N.Z. Times

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1910. A RIDICULOUS PROPOSAL

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Tlig Defence Act of last session having made physical and military drill compulsory for the youth of-the country, the obvious thing to do, we should imagine, would be to form the proposed corps and appoint the requisite number of instructors competent to give the lads the training they are to receive. Instead of that we are having proposals put forward for the appointment of Professors of Military Science to the University. There are to be four of these professors, at an annual salary of £750 each, and the project for spending £3OOO yearly in this direction is received by our contemporary the “ Post ” with vigorous applause. Can the “ Post ” really hope the Government will thus early discount the now Act in popular estimation, and make the Dominion a laughing-stock by undertaking to find the money for this hiare-brained suggestion? It would be possible to understand a plan for having one such individual in the country, but for a community of a quarter of a million male adults to establish four Chairs of Military Science would indicate that it had lost all sense of proportion. University professors do not train officers for the army any more than they train sailors for the navy. Their function is the study of tactics pursued in classical campaigns, of. military history—the academic consideration of strategy—very necessary no doubt in the education of professional soldiers, destined for high place in their calling. How many learned tacticians and profound strategists is this Dominion ever likely to find employment for? What wo want is a small, wellorganised School of Military Instruction wliich would deal with the practical training of company officers. This could quite easily be a peripatetic institution end lose nothing in efficiency. But four professors to train military pundits I The idea is enough to take the taxpayer's breath away. As it happens the proposed co-ordination of the Imperial Forces and the widened activities of the British General Staff —already moving towards realisation—include provision under wliich ambitious New Zealand officers will have opportunity for securing the highest technical and theoretical education the Old Country can afford. There is a plan in preparation for the interchange of British and colonial officers under conditions which will

give young men in tins country anxious to follow the profession of arms a very real opportunity of doing so, and at the same time give the Now Zealand Forces the advantages to bo derived from the attachment to thorn of officers appointed by the General Staff. General Sir W. G. Nicholson is giving this matter personal attention, and at the conclusion of Lord Kitchener’s tour of inspection tiro plan now existing in outline will be systematised. Our argument is that this will be a hundredfold more effective in securing to New Zealand the services of well-equipped officers than would the importation of a battalion of professors.. It is rather a pity the pcoplo who are putting forward this appeal to the University Senate have not made themselves acquainted with what colonial Governments and the War Office have in view, and most decidedly disconcerting to find newspaper’s giving countenance to untimely, confusing propositions of the kind under notice. When it knows tho facts the University Senate will, of course, quickly pass on to other business.