MILITARY TRAINING.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13296, 27 May 1907, Page 7

MILITARY TRAINING.

SHOULD IT BE COMPULSORY? On April 4th a manifesto was issued by the National Service League and signed by Lord Roberts, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Milner, and: Lord Meath, which Mr Haldane's proposals for a National or Territorial Army are criticised, and an alternative .scheme is offered^—namely,, compulsory training. After paying a tribute to Mr Hal dale's painstaking efforts, backed by the' best military advice obtainable under the voluntary system, the : (manifesto states : " What" will there, be .behind the. Regular •Iforces under Mr Haldane's scheme? When these have gone abroad there will be othing behind them except, the •so-called training battalions, - which are simply enlarged depots, and a mass of men -who are the Volunteers under a new name. The Militia, which; notwithstanding its shortcomings, was of great value in the South African War, will be gone.

" The proposed ' National Army' will be neither national nor an army . . . It

is to be trained on a Volunteer basis; and | this training, it is now universally admitted will not produce forces capable of meeting highly trained troops in; the field, the only troops, be it remembered,. which a Home Defence Army would be called, upon to encounter. Under Mr Haldane's scheme 'the 'six months' training, which would go far towards fitting the Territorial troops for this duty, is to be given after the crisis is on us, not in anticipation of it. Can this be called in any sense an Army ? An army which requires six months before it can act is not an army, it is siinply an armed crowd. "It is impossible not to see that under Mr Haldane's proposals, as indeed under any that rest on valuntary engagement to perform a national duty, the one class that is favoured is that of the pleasure-seeking and the self-indulgent. The man who will go free is the loafer and the shirker. Admitting that destructive criticism is easy, the manifesto proceeds to develop an alternative plan as follows : " What we ask is that the six months' training laid down by Mr Haldane as necessary to make the Territorial Forces tit for the field should precede the crisis, and that it ishould be made compulsbry on all ablebodied males of the militarv age! For the thre? years subsequent to that in which this training takes place, the men 'should come up for repitition courses of a fortnight in each year, and during 'the four vears covering the initial training and the repetition they should be liable for service for home defence. At the end of these four years all liability to service should cease. "In the case of the Regular Army — or expeditionary force of 160,000 men, to use Mr Haldane's phrase—being sent abroad for a great oversea war, the Territorial Force should be embodied, and the reinforcements and expansion required by voluntary engagement from it. We have ho fear but that the national spirit would in time of war, provide all the reinforcements required. What the national spirit cannot tlo is to improvise trained soldiers, or to turn raw levies into efficient troops ■:hort notice." ; In conclusion, an appeal • is made to Mr Haldane, who lias gone so far in the direction in which the national safety lies, to graft on his scheme, " the one thing requisite to make it a reality"—compulsory training as a national duty. Meanwhile, •. the principle invplved is left to public opinion.