THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. FRIDAY 7th MARCH, 1913. EXUBERANCE OF YOUTH.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 18, 7 March 1913, Page 4

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. FRIDAY 7th MARCH, 1913. EXUBERANCE OF YOUTH.

IN commenting upon the charges brought against Senior Cadets at the Magistrate’s Court, Picton last week, says the “ Press,” Mr F. O’B. Loughnan, S.M., was emphatic in his opinion that the lads enrolled under the Territorial system of military training must be taught to obey orders. It appeared to him that many of the boys did not realise their responsibilities pr take the matter seriously, and in the exuberance of youth were apt to overstep the mark. In several parts of New Zealand the cadets had endeavoured to make the parades farcical in the extreme, and acts of insubordination should be ,nipped in the bud. Military discipline was the foundation of all efficiency, and he would do all in his power to see that the law was adhered to. The father of one of the boys remarked, that it was most trivial and absurd that lads'should.’be taken to Court and made criminals for such a slight offence, but the S.M. replied that this was not so. There was no criminality about it, he said : the boys were not charged with a crime, but only with a breach of the Statute. It was no moral disgrace, such as a conviction for assault or dishonesty, and there was nothing of a criminal intent about it. Captain Avery, in supplementing the Magistrate’s remarks, said that up to the present the Territorial movement in Marlborough had been working very smoothly, and the Department did not press for a heavy penalty in the present cases. If little disturbances of the nature reported were overlooked, he said, they were likely to grow, and it was hoped that the lesson would prove a warning to others.