SCHOOL CADETS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23334, 28 October 1937, Page 6

SCHOOL CADETS

ABOLITION OF SPECIALIST UNITS GOVERNMENT'S ACTION CRITICISED NEED OF STIMULATING INTEREST (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Oct. 27. The decision of the Government to abolish specialist training units in secondary school military cadet companies was criticised by Mr J. Hargest (Opposition, Awarua) during the debate on the Army Board Bill in the House of Representatives to-day. "I do not know really why the Minister has abolished these units," Mr Hargest said. "I have always felt that the average secondary schoolboy would benefit more from that sort of training—getting behind a field gun or a machine gun and becoming interested in the mechanical side of his training—than in shouldering arms and forming fours. " I think that the Minister of Defence (Mr F. Jones) must agree that his excuse is a weak one—that the boys who undertook that sort of training did not go into the infantry afterwards," Mr Hargest continued. "Of course they do not go into the infantrv, but they join other units where their special training is valuable. I think that if ever we had mobilisation in this country it would be these men with specialist training who would be needed. It is this type of work which, were I the Minister, I would encourage secondary schools to undertake for their military training. I think that if we could get the schoolboy interested in that training we would certainly be getting him for. a tew years as a territorial recruit. Stimulation of Interest Mr W. A. Bodkin (Opposition, Central Otago) also asked the Minister to reconsider the proposal to abolish specialist training for boys in the secondary schools. If the forces were to be maintained in the future the secondary schools were, in the main, the reservoir from which recruits would have to be drawn. If the Minister could do anything to stimulate' the interest of those boys in the defence movement generally, he would be rendering a very great service. "I would like to see military training in the secondary schools abolished altogether," said Mr T. H. M'Combs (Govt, Lyttelton). "I have possibly had more experience of this training in secondary schools than any other of the speakers on the point. I feel that military training in secondary schools is such as to inculcate in the minds of young people the idea'that war is a desirable thing. In various countries throughout the world certain forms of war propaganda are indulged in, aand one of the forms of this propoganda is this training in the schools. I would like to see military training in the schools abolished altogether," An Opposition member: Are you a Pacifist? , Decision Defended "For defence motives, I would like to see this - ;'training go," Mr M'Combs said. « For staffing the defence forces we need physically fit men, and I feel that far too little time is spent in physical training in the secondary schools. A physically fit boy is a potentially fit defender of New Zealand. I feel that the schoolboy would be more fit if he spent less time on muscle stultifying exercises like form fours, which are devised by the sergeant, and more on real physical exercises." Mr M'Combs argued that if the specialist training was left until after the school years, it would provide an incentive to further recruiitments for the forces, whereas at the moment it was lacking through the school specialist training having exhausted the incentive.