The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1917. THE MILITARY AGE.

Southland Times, Issue 17734, 11 August 1917, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1917. THE MILITARY AGE.

It is now practically certain that the Bill amending the Military Service Act of 1916 will include proposals to reduce the military' age to 19, possibly to 18 years. We are told that these proposals will meet with a mixed reception in the House, and it is safe to say that their reception in the country' will be not merely mixed but hostile. To the great bulk of the people the idea of sending lads of IS and 19 into the maelstrom of war is in the highest degree repugnant. One of the very worst aspects of the war is the slaughter it entails among the boys of the belligerent nations. Laris of 18 and 19 are in the middle stage between childhood and manhood -adolescence. Politically and legally' they arc helpless. They have no voice in the direction of the country’s affairs, and can say neither yea nor nay to the proposal that they should he brought within the scope of compulsory service. Their stake in the country, to use the common phrase, is small. Many of them are still at school nr college. Few of them have any property of their own. Those who are in employment are earning small wages. The number of those married is infinitesimal, and if they' go to fight they fight almost entirely for the protection of the lives and property of other people. If those should fight who have most to fight for, the lads of 18 and 19 should be the last class to be called up. Furthermore these boys are the strength and promise of the nation. The development and progress of the country in the next 25 years is in their hands. It is they who will marry, build homes, raise families, establish new businesses, and develop the country’s enterprises and resources. All the useful and productive years of life lie before them, and if they fall in buttle or are maimed and broken in health they lose all that a man counts worth living for. The sacrifice made by a man of 35 or 40 is not so great. He has at least had a fair run in life. If he has any capacity for achievement he has already' done something. If he is not a confirmed bachelor he has already married and established his home, and if he goes under in battle he leaves behind him those who will carry on his name and his work. When he goes to fight he fights for his own, for the pro-

tection of the civil and political privileges he has enjoyed for years, of those who are dear to him and of his property. It is not difficult to make out a strong case in favour of the exemption of lads of 18 and 10, and if the question is simply whether boys of IS or 10 should he token as against

married men of older yearn, we think the overwhelming decision of this country will be that the married men must go first.

In this connection we observe that the reason suggested for the lowering of the military' age is that the Government and some members of the House are unwilling to call upon the Second Division until that cnurse is absolutely forced upon them. It is also suggested that the Government has yielded to the pressure of the Second Division League. We can hardly believe that there is any ground for cither of these suggestions. When the Military Service Act was passed it was perhaps thought that the Second Division would never be called upon, hut the machinery for calling up married men was provided and the Government would he pusillanimous indeed if with the exhaustion of the First Division it failed to call up the Second Division to recruit the Expeditionary Force. The married men of this country surely do not ask to he released from their obligations, and we are persuaded that the Government will not hesitate to call upon them when the time comes. As to the Second Division League the lowering of the military age had no place in the platform of that organisation, and it is a scurrilous thing to suggest that married men of military' age would stoop to shelter themselves behind boys of 18 and 19. If the only reason for this amendment is to postpone the calling up of the Second Division it will, we hope, be thrown out of the House promptly and vigorously, and we venture to say' that its rejection will have the approval of members of the Second Division as well as that of the people generally 7. But before any conclusion as to the reasons for the amendment are drawn it would be as well to await the explanations of the Minister of Defence. This proposal will have to be decided upon its merits as a military measure. The calling up of the Second Division has really nothing to do with it. It involves a stocktaking of the manhood of the country, and the question is simply this: Whether in the fourth year of the war it has become necessary to lower the military' age in order to obtain more men for the fighting forces. That is the question which the Minister of Defence will have to answer, and unless he can answer it satisfactorily his proposal should not receive any' consideration. We anticipate that the chief reason for introducing this amendment is that when the military age was defined to mean “not less than 20 years and not more than 46 years, of age” the Government included a period of five years in which very few men are of any practical use for military purposes. Nominally a man is fit for military service under the New Zealand Act until he attains the age of 46 years; as a matter of fact war experience has proved that once a man turns 40 he is in all but comparatively few cases unfit for fighting and the soldier’s life.