TERRITORIAL CAMPS.
MINISTER AND COUNCIL.
(Special to tne Herald.)
CHRISTCHURCH, this day,
At a meeting of tho Ashburton County Council yesterday a letter was read from Sir James Allen, Minister of Defence, m reply to the resolution which had been passed by the Council m reference to the abolition of territorial camps, and also to the system of training which was then m force. Tlie Minister said he f el**> sure that the Council had,misunderstood the position, and trusted that on reviewing the question the members of it would come to the conclusion that there was quite another side to the story. If the members were alluding to training camps for this year he desired to inform them that it was not intended to hold them. If their resolution was intended to cover training camps m the future, then he was not. m accord with it. They had no assurance that the League of Nations, if formed, would guarantee the safety of the country m future, and it was impossible that there would be no menace to this country from outside m the years to come. A large percentage of ; men who went to camp were physically unfit for military service, aiid he deemed it to be the duty of the Government to provide that this unfitness should not j prevail m the future. Tlie physically ! fit man was more useful as an ordinary citizen than the unfit. Again, there was abundant evidence to show that "the smartness and discipline inculcated m camps brought dirty characteristics m those under training which made them more efficient as workers or producers. There were many other reasons which he woulgl like to impress on the Council. They had come to a -wrong conclusion. If time would permit it would give him great pleasure to meet the members and lay his views before them, It was pointed out that a copy of the Council's resolution had been sent out to forty different local bodies. Thirteen of these bodies had approved of the resolution. Ten had sent replies disapproving of it. Twelve others had decided to take ho action, and others had decided to take further time to consider the question. After considerable dlsoussion the following resolution was oarried j '*Th_t this Council, after carefully considering the Minister of ' Defence's letter of 14th March, feels there is no l'eason to reconsider the resolution passed on February 7th, seeing that the views expressed m that resolution have met with the approval of various County Councils m the Dominion, some supporting it m its entirety and others partly. The Council is. however, quit© m accordance with physical training of youths m schools, but does not approve of the military aspect of the question,"
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19190407.2.65
Bibliographic details
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14880, 7 April 1919, Page 7
Word Count
456TERRITORIAL CAMPS. Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14880, 7 April 1919, Page 7
Using This Item
The Gisborne Herald Company is the copyright owner for the Poverty Bay Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Gisborne Herald Company. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.