DEFENCE DEPARTMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12687, 8 July 1919, Page 6

DEFENCE DEPARTMENT.

IMPORTANT CHANGES

[Eeh Press Association-.]

WELLINGTON, July 8. Considerable interest is being evinced regarding the forthcoming changes in. the Defence staff. The ordinary training of Territorials and Senior Cadets having been interrupted on account of the war, it has become urgently neces-; sary to complete the former establishment of officers and n.c.o.’s, so that the training of New Zealand’s citizen army may be fully redeemed by the beginning of next year. In order to do this, the services of many officers and n.c.o.’s are required, and as it Iff preferred that these, as far as possible, should be returned soldiers, it is expected that while a few temporary apEmtments to the staff corps may now made, the whole of the applications will not be determined until after demobilisation is completed, when all will go before a special Board of Selection. ft is reported that it has been laid down that the officers commanding the to .ur military districts shall be men with modern war_ experience, and that, pursuance of t.iis, Brigadier-Generals Melville and Young, now in England, have been cabled for, to take the commands in the Wellington and Canterbury districts respectively. Colonel i otter will remain temporarily in command of the Auckland district, while Lieutenant-Colonel AlacDonald, now temporarily commanding the Wellington district, will assume temporary command of . the Otago district.