A WORD FOR THE SECOND LIEUTENANT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17123, 26 October 1917, Page 6

A WORD FOR THE SECOND LIEUTENANT.

"This war is being won by second lieutenants." That rather striking remark, which will not prevent second lieutenants from wishing for promotion, occurs in lan Hay's sixth paper— the last of a hignly informative series —on "The New America." The writer is comparing or cor tiasting the typical young British officer, "our own familiar happy-go-lucky beloved subaltern/ with his American contemporary of equal rank. A priori, all the practical advantages would seem to belong to the American, who is more serious in study, more Spartan in habit, more scientific by temperament and training, without the young Briton's affectation (for it is, we think, usually but an affectation of airy nonchalance. "Before the war a dispassionate critic would have said that he was a more capable officer than the Britisher; certainly he was better grounded. But experience has taught us to be wary, these days, of challenging the efficiency of any British officer, however flippant or callow. This war is being won by .second lieutenants." But the American officer is "intensely efficient," and I?.n Hay has no doubt that he will give a good account of himself on Europeaa battlefields. That Amercan, on entering into the war, possessed at least the nucleus of a ciapable sfcnff of officers is mainly due, we are told, to the prescient patriotism of "that very distinguished American soldier, Majorgeneral Leonard "Wood —a man who has occupied a nlace in American public life for many years curiously similar to that held "so leng and so honourably by our own Lord Roberts. For years General Wood strove, 'by voice and pen, to ai'ouse hs countrymen to their'plain duty of Preparedness; and. like ,Lord Roberts, he was publicly slighted for his pains. '' But he did not labour "altogether in vain." Here :s juiothpr ;>rrestng observa^on: "The first to join, as usual, were the young men of means nnd leisure —the despised Idle Eich." The term "as usual" may provoke some critical comment, but ;t derives considerable support from British experience.