BRITISH TERRITORIAL ARMY

Southland Times, Issue 23337, 22 October 1937, Page 5

BRITISH TERRITORIAL ARMY

CLOSER CO-OPERATION WITH REGULAR FORCES (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, October 20. Changes in the War Office organization and military appointments connected with them, to which the King has given his approval, with a ' View to marking and providing for the position now occupied by the Territorial Army as an indispensable branch of the fighting services, were disclosed by the Secretary for War (Mr L. Hore-Belisha), speaking at a dinner given by the City Lieutenants at the Mansion House. There was, Mr Hore-Belisha said, no other country which could offer the spectacle of competent, resolute, voluntary defence services on the scale of those of Britain. In the Territorials they had an army almost as large as the Regular Army, and there was no doubt that it must be expected to play its full part. Already it was charged with the defending of Britain coastwards and skywards; that was a tremendous responsibility. The Minister then announced that the King had approved of the nomination of General Sir Walter Kirke as Direc-tor-General of the Territorial Army and as a member of the Army Council. All questions affecting the Territorial Army would henceforth be concentrated and administrated at the War Office under the Director-General, who would be given an adequate staff. The King had also approved of the creation of the new post of Deputy-Director-General of the Territorial Army and the promotion of territorial officers who would hold that office to the rank of major-general. Further, another territorial officer would be appointed as Assistant Ad-jutant-General at the War Office. After commenting on the spirit of cooperation which existed between the regular and territorial armies and which the changes announced would strengthen, Mr Hore-Belisha said that he had dwelt not on the armed strength which could be pressed and ordered into service but on that deep, inexhaustible reserve which was not numbered in men alone nor counted in cannon but which was more impregnable than these: the quiet, persistent, unshakeable resolve of the British people, without premature or permanent dislocation of the balance of its national economy and life, to meet any crisis, and to endure.