THE TERRITORIALS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 122, 15 July 1911, Page 3

THE TERRITORIALS.

RELIGJO 1 : S SERVICES. A letter was received by the Christchurch Presbytery from the Defence Department, in reply to an inquiry, stating that it was not intended to have standing camps, but to hold regimental camps for seven days. Every facility would be given for social and religions work. In the Canterbury district the approximate number of men in camp would be 1000 infantry, 550 mounted men, 150 artillery, 250 engineers, and 150 garrison artillery. A VIGOROUS SPEECH.

At the Non-Commissioned Officers’ Club’s smoke concert in Christchurch last week, Lieut.-Colonel Creswell made some interesting remarks regarding tiic universal training system. H'e said that he luftl noticed that one correspondent, writing to a local newspaper, stated that he objected to a young man being ordered about like a dog, and had added that V rather than be so ordered about he would go to gaol. “I haven’t met any non-commissioned officers yet who ordered their men about in the fashion described; certainly, I have ‘scruffed’ some fellows who wouldn’t do as they were told—just caught them by the scruff of the neck and made them io it—but I haven’t talked to them as if they were dogs. These letters about compulsory training make me sick! Compulsory training will be the finest thing for the youth of this country that lias ever happened to them. If they can. only drive a little discipline an 5 coramonsense into the heads of the young men it will do them good and the country good. The average boy, now-a-days, would rather bo a third-rate football player than a first-class tradesman, because it goes against his grain to ho the last-men-tioned. The sooner he is ‘ordered about like a dog’ the better it will ho for him, for his parents, for the employer, and for the country.” The 11th‘ Regiment of Territorials, of which the Taranaki companies form a part, lias been attached to the 57th Middlesex Regiment, ' with which tliTaranaki Volunteers wire cl-sely associated during the Miori trouble*.