THE NEW SOLDIER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24915, 14 May 1942, Page 4

THE NEW SOLDIER

Referring to a definition of the ideal infantryman as “athlete, sharpshooter, stalker,” General Sir Archibald Wavell has said: “ I always feel i inclined to put my demands on a lower plane and to say that the qualities Of a successful poacher, catburglar and gunman would content me.” Such a statement would have been rank heresy a few years; ago. Now'-the parade-ground soldier and the least learned in military matters can equally recognise, without a sigh or a qualm, the essential soundness of the argument. Western Europe, Greece, Crete, Libya, and, especially, Malaya, have laid emphasis upon the" need for a strong element of unorthodoxy in the soldier’s training. He must be prepared to live in the soil and to live off the land; 4 to fight not only as part of an elaborately mechanised army, but also as an individual, with makeshift weapons and even with no weapons at all. The New Zealand public, or such portion of it as has read carefully the available records of contemporary warfare, realises this. So does the average member of the New Zealand forces. There is a disposition, not always without some basis, to fear that the mysterious organisation personified as High Command is slow to learn such facts of common knowledge, and that the authors of training manuals absorb new ideas slowly. Several special articles which we have printed recently have contained reassuring evidence that these fears are exaggerated. New Zealand army training to-day, it is revealed, is undergoing adaptation to meet the requirements set out in General Wavell’s maxim. Instruction in unarmed combat, which is regarded as particularly relevant to soldiers who may have to meet the Japanese, is being given. Small detachments of soldiers are obtaining experience in guerrilla warfare- under rigid conditions, operating as roaming selfcontained units for a weekx on end, during which time they must supply themselves with all the necessaries and comforts usually provided from army stores. It is intended, no doubt, that these methods of practical instruction will be spread throughout the New Zealand forces. The scheme is excellent, and it is reasonable to suppose that the army authorities recognise that it must be extended as speedily as is,practicable. Apart from the proven value, and, indeed, essentiality, of instruction in new methods of waging war, the policy of giving the men in our home forces interesting, difficult tasks to do—tasks requiring stamina, initiative and intelligence—is that best calculated to maintain their enthusiasm and preparedness during a mobilisation period of indefinite duration.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE LAW There was a great deal of reason behind the protest by the Leader of the Opposition and Mr Lee in the House of Representatives last week concerning the phraseology that is employed in some legislative measures. Ignorance of the law constitutes, as is in all probability well known, no excuse for a breach of the law, and as the law is binding on every member of the community it would seem not unreasonable to hold that it should be expressed in terms that would be intelligible to every fairly intelligent member of the community on occasions when he might require to have access to it. It is impossible to say that the Finance Bill that was passed last week, under which the basis rates of income tax were amended, possesses that virtue. This amendment is effected in a clause covering a page and a-half of the printed Bill. From this clause we reproduce a portion: Where the total income derived by the taxpayer during the income year included non-assessable income to which section 6 of the Land and Income Tax Amendment Act, 1931, applies, then, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in that section, the rate shall be as follows: (a) Where the taxable income is all earned income, the tax payable thereon shall be the amount by Which tax at the effective earned rate on a taxable income equal in amount to the total of the taxpayer’s taxable income and of that non-assessable income exceeds tax at the effective earned rate on a taxable income equal in amount to that non-assessable income.

There are additional subsections of the clause defining, or purporting to define, the tax that is payable in cases where the taxable income is all unearned income and-where the taxable income includes both earned income and unearned income, and they are expressed in terms corresponding in cloudiness to those that are above quoted. The grammar is not unimpeachable, but this must be a matter of smaller concern to the average taxpayer than the fact that the terms of the legislation that require him to pay a tax on the amount of his income are so involved that they baffle his powers of interpretation and that the reading of them might almost be used as a test of sobriety. It is to be hoped that these provisions of the law are comprehensible by the trained legal mind, but it will hardly be surprising if an appeal is made to the judiciary for a decision respecting their precise meaning.