MILITARY AND NAVAL NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18452, 1 May 1928, Page 14

MILITARY AND NAVAL NOTES.

NEWS FROM BARRACKS AND PARADE GROUND. (By GUNNER). Personal Major N. P. Neal, 3rd Cadet Battalion, Canterbury Regiment, is transferred to the Reserve of Officers. W. 0.1. J. P. Joyce, D.C.M., R.N.Z.A., is appointed a lieutenant in the New Zealand Permanent Forces. Recent appointments to the rank of lieutenant R.N.'Y.R. in the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy include H. A. Rhind, G. G. Andrews, C. H. Kersley and S. P. Dalton. Other naval probationary appointments are F. A. Gunson as lieutenant. C. W. Wilson as lieutenant. P. D. Hall as sub-lieutenant, F. G. Tidswell as sublieutenant, I. J. Wilson as paymas-ter-lieutenant. A conference of Commanding Officers, their Seconds-in-Command and Adjutants will be held to-morrow to discuss matters in connection with the policy of training and administration in the coming year. In the meantime, the postings which are generally well under way by this time have been delayed. In the .competition for the Campbell Statuette, which is open to be won by any non-Secondary School unit in the Dominion, B Company of the 4th Cadet Battalion has been placed in Regimental District No. 10. A.Command Board is now inspecting the best company in each R. D. to determine the best in the command. Later a G.H.Q. Board will make the final deA recent Gazette gives notice of the disbandment of the Pigeon Bay Defence Rifle Club. “Don’t Shoot.” It is delightful to hear that there is a threat or promise that the Legion of Frontiersmen is to be revived in Waikato (says a writer in the Auckland “Star.”) Few people up to this announcement knew there was a war on. Long, long before the last war this organisation of men who had roamed the world afforded an opportunity to sober, middle-aged men to assume entrancing togs, including riding pants and spurs, surmounted by a wickedlooking American liat and trimmed with a desperate holster containing a gun. At an Auckland conference of these apparent desperadoes many of them were seen locally in their uniforms, bright new yellow pistol holsters and all. And several of them strolled nonchalantly down the Queen's wharf. On the wharf was a large crowd of waterside workers, probably half of whom had been either sailors or soldiers. And the amusing spectacle was seen of this crowd affrightedly raising their hands in token of surrender, while a terrific voice came from them, “For ’eaven’s sake don't shoot—we’ll go quiet! ” Our Soldiers on the Rhine. In the House of Commons recently Commander Kenworthy opened the debate on the Army Estimates with a protest against the size and cost of Britain's Army of Occupation on the Rhine. It is too large to have any military value in a population of 60,000,000; and if its value is purely symbolic, 1 why, two men and a boy would be just as symbolic. He complained that the staff of this army was unnecessarily large and costly; that we were not getting the whole cost, or anything like it, out of the Germans; that the conditions were not favourable to military efficiency. Worse still, the good conduct of the Army so commended itself to the population of Wiesbaden and district that the soldiers were marrying German wives, which he thought was not fair to the spinsters of England. Lord Apsley followed with a technical discussion on the mechanisation of artillery; he prefers self-propelled guns to tanks, which, it seems, are becoming obsolescent in his opinion. Mr Tinker, from the Labour benches, denounced the cavalry as obsolete; it was a real relief to get a Labour speech on a Service subject which did not advocate a conference to do away with the Service altogether. The Labour Varty misses Major Attlee in these debates.

The Secretary of War replied on conventional lines both to Lord Apsley and Commander Kenworthy. The most interesting sentence in his speech was his reference to the need of an automatic rifle. The automatic rifle is a one-man portable machine-gun, and the Minister for War thinks that we have at last found something satisfactory. He was very cautious on the subject, but a really satisfactory automatic rifle would be as important an innovation as the tank itself. It would enable us greatly to reduce the size of armies.

Lord Apsley, one noted, was of the opinion that the Army of the future would be much smaller, and the new Army proposals in France are in that direction.

In the air debate after dinner Captain Guest repeated his protest of last week against the. neglect of civil aviation by the Ministry. Captain Guest regards civil aviation as the basis of military power in the air.

The House was very thin all day, and at times dropped below twenty. In the later stages of the debate Admiral Sueter made some interesting suggestions for the regulation of transAtlantic flights and their prohibition to unauthorised persons, except under stringent conditions. The debate was wound up by Sir Samuel Iloarc. Cadet Competitions. An unofficial letter from the Nelson College Board of Governors was received at last week’s meeting of the Wellington College Board of Governors, drawing attention to cadet competitions.' Although Nelson College had been unusually successful in such competitions as the Riddiford Cup, the board was beginning to think that the repeated and constant work entailed was not in the best interests of the educational side of school life, nor was it adequately compensated for by the gain in military knowledge. The Nelson Board was considering whether it should not make an appeal to the Defence Department for the abolition of these competitions, but before doing so thought it would endeavour to obtain the views of other secondary school boards. Two opinions obtained from the head masters of Rongotai and Wellington Colleges were read to the Wellington board, and the chairman (Mr W. 11. P. Barber) moved that a reply be sent to the Nelson board confirming its opinion against the competitions, but Mr R. Darroch said that as* they were of a purely voluntary nature the board should take no action, and this course was approved.