The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1912. MILITARY TRAINING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 9, 7 January 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1912. MILITARY TRAINING.

Although the present brief visit to Taranaki of New Zealand’s Commandant, General Godley, is a quite informal one, we are glad to have him here, and trust that lie may have the opportunity of meeting many of the farmers and settlers face to face. In no part of the Dominion, we believe, is the Act working more smoothly than in Taranaki, and the consideration shown by the area officers to emI ployers in the arrangement of parades is very much appreciated. General Godley will find very few opponents of the defence scheme in this district, and the efficiency of the Eleventh Regiment is excellent evidence of the good spirit and loyalty of men and officers. Unfortunately, however, one sordid grumbler can v make a lot of noise, and may even create an entirely wrong impression. It would be very well if some of those who, for no real reason that any sane person can discern, rant and rail against our system of military training, as “conscription,” could see genuine conscription in the working, as it is practised on the Continent. In France, for example, young men are not called upon to merely give up a few evenings and afternoons for drill and parade, and to possibly enjoy a couple of weeks’ pleasant camp life once a year, as in New Zealand. The young Frenchman has to serve his country for two years continuously, devoting all his time during that period to military study and education, and often being obliged to interrupt his professional studies in the service of his country. The Paris correspondent of the Melbourne ‘Ago’ draws some interesting comparisons between these widely different systems. Life in French barracks is a far le*s pleasant experience than a free holiday in a training camp in New Zealand. In France, young men who have been brought up in comfortable homes have to sleep on hard, narrow- beds, many of their companions being peasants who have slept all their lives on straw in some hovel, and have seldom washed until compelled to dt) so by the military authorities. Notwithstanding all this, there, is little discontent among the soldiers, the writer alleges, and his statement is borne out fully: the men of France love their country, and willingly serve it. They bear their discomforts with gay serenity, regarding complaints as unworthy of a true Frenchman, and being ever ready to sacrifice their personal convenience in the interests of “la patrie.” “After all,” they say, “these are only details. One soon gets used to anything, and after a

hard day’s work one can sleep soundly on the hardest of beds.” The beneficial effects of tliis training are discernahle on every side in France, and the smartness and precision which Frenchmen put into all their actions may reasonably he largely attributed to the discipline they undergo during their period of military service. i

. —■ GREAT GENERALS.

The dash and brilliance of Bulgarian strategy in the early stages of thej war with Turkey, has, in some quarters, been attributed to the youthfulness of Bulgaria’s generals. At the head of them, General Savoff, is but fifty years of age, but when only forty he was entrusted with the complete reorganisation of the army, and lie was actually a general and Minister of War at the age of twenty-eight. Similarly General Gutincheff, in command of the Third Army, and General Radko Dimitrieff, the hero of Kirk Kilisse, are under fifty. General Ivanoff, head of the First Army besieging Adrianople, is only forty-five years old. Ai writer in a leading English journal, referring especially to this, recalls the fact that all the world’s great commanders have been young men or men in the prime of life. “Alexander the Great” set out to conquer the. known world at the age of twenty-four and died at the age of thirty-three. Hannibal began his march against Rome when ho was twenty-nine. Caesar, when he invaded Britain, was only forty-five; lie was scarcely over fifty when he “crossed the Rubicon,” and by the time ho was fifty-four lie had completed the defeat of the Pompeians and was ruler of the Roman Empire. Napoleon at the age of twenty-six took command of the French armies in Italy, and was only forty-six when he met Wellington at Waterloo. Wellington himself was only a few weeks older than Napoleon. Marlborough was the oldest of eminent generals, but he was only fifty-four at the battle of Blenheim, and fifty-nine at the battle of Malplaquet. Napoleon’s famous generals Marshal Ney and Marshal Murat were in command of victorious armies in their thirties, and were executed, Murat at the age of forty-four and Ney when he was forty-six. Lazarc Hoche, the wonderful young commander of the French Revolutionary forces, was only twenty-five when he led the famous army of the Moselle. Against this list of young men some critics might put Lord Roberts, who went out to South Africa when he was sixtyeight, but it must be remembered that lie left his younger Chief-cf-Staff, Lord Kitchener, then fifty years of age, to carry the war to a successful end. Lord Kitchener, by the way, is • now in his sixty-third year.”

METEOROLOGICAL MATTERS.

Mr. Clement Wragge, writing to the Auckland ‘Star,’ makes interesting ieference to meteorological matters. He says: “The gales and floods in. England, and recently also in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, coupled with the prevailing under average rainfall in Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji, South Africa, and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere,, are conclusive evidence of the correctness of my solar theory re the forecasting of seasons. We are now at the period of solar minimum, and the two hemispheres respond in opposite ways, positively and negatively respectively. Lunar influence is a secondary factor, and tends to modify the main solar conditions. The present factors, due to the sun, point distinctly to a coming dry year in Australia, South Africa, South America, and the main Pacific Islands, but intervening rains will surely occur owing to the wide swing of lunar declination which produces atmospheric tides, and lifts oceanic vapours to the higher regions of the atmosphere, where cold, anti-cyclonic agencies condense them into rain, yet this notwithstanding, Australasia may expect an under-average rainfall. New Zealand can never be so bad owing to its insular position. Conditions are also favourable for positive seismic action south of the Line, and negative north from the Equator. In this connection it is well to remember the recent eruptions in the island of Niafu, and hardly a day goes by without the seismograph at Suva being affected. 1 have myself seen the curves. Truly the proof of the pudding is in he eating.”

THE AURORA EXPEDITION.

Mr. Conrad Eitol, Secretary of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, in the course of an interesting account of the fitting out of the Aurora, t te stout little ship which sailed for the ice-world of the South on Boxing Day. remarks that the Shacldoton Expedition, as may he remembered, concentrated much attention towards the discovery of an Antarctic flea. Baron Bothschild, the millionaire naturalist, offered £2OOO for a single specimen One afternoon Marshall discovered a flea on a penguin lie had shot. The whole camp gathered around, and with infinite industry the location of the valuable insect was narrowed down to a small copse of feathers. The process of elimination was continued until the fugitive’s cover was reduced to a few tufts. Then came the tragedy. Just as the wide-necked bottle was about to be applied that flea leaped on to Marshall’s clothes. In absolute silence £2OOO disappeared. It was said that Marshall was subjected to much investigation and interrogation thatevening, and narrowly escaped dissection. The Mawson expedition, however, Mr. Eitol tells us, is seeking to capture something much bigger than a flea—a right whale, the, largest of all animals whether on the land or in the water. For this purpose they have secured the services of Captain James Davis (not to be confused with Captain J. K. Davis), a Hobart whaler of credit and renown. He obtained his first “kill” as a boy of 16, and though it is many years since he es-

tablished the record of ten whales with eleven thrusts of the harpoon, he is confident that his hand lias not lost its power. The Aurora’s whaleboat is being fitted’ out with a whale-gun which fires a harpoon carrying an explosive bomb, but judging by the attention which ho is paying k) the sharpening of the hand lances tma oldtime whaling captain appears inclined to trust more to his former methods. The object of these preparations is to bring back the head of a right whale, and thus prove that the whales of the Aurora’s captain discovered in such numbers among the ice floes are actually the “right” whale, which carries from £3OO to £3OO worth of whalebone in its jaws. When the head reaches Australia a valuable industry will be started.