MILITARY TRAINING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19541, 30 March 1926, Page 6

MILITARY TRAINING

Provision is made in the Auckland province for the training of a large number of young men for defence purposes, and considerable interest seems to have been created by the large camps held at Ngaruawahia during the past month or two. It is agreed on all hands that the training camps have shown that in enthusiasm intelligence and physique the territorials of to-day are as excellent as the recruits who, in the actual emergency, were mobilised to prepare for the test of warfare. Their cheerful acquiescence in the compulsory system of training places the country under obligation to see that the system itself is sound; that it has a sufficiently defined purpose, and that the provision for the training and the equipment of the forces is adequate m quantity and wise in its nuet-hods. According to the 4 ‘New Zealand Herald,” serious questions have been raised upon these fundamental points. From within the force complaint has been made that its central principle is imperilled by the stinting of financial provision. The training should be compulsory and universal, but lack of funds has already enforced a certain degree of selection by adding proximity to training centres to the other qualifications of service. This automatic exemption, operating beyond arbitrary geographical boundaries, must have an injurious influence, for the natural aversion to compulsion has its best corrective in the knowledge that the liability applies to every man on his attaining the age for training. It is also claimed that in spite of the greater complexity of military equipment produced by the war, the territorials of New Zealand receive only about one-third of the training which was considered necessary for British territorials before the war, though they were intended to serve only as an untrained reservoir from which recruits would be drawn on the outbreak of war. This estimation of the situation raises larger questions than the simple alternatives of increasing the defence vote to enable the period and the quality of the training to be raised or of reducing the force to the compass of the present expenditure. The new Minister of Defence has a fine opportunity to improve the training. Undoubtedly the camp life as they know it at present is doing the young men who take part in it a world of good. Not only does it teach them the value of physical fitness but it also helps to build up character. Whether it makes good soldiers is another question, and at least it must be admitted that if training for defence is desirable the trainees should be thoroughly equipped and taught up-to-date methods. The final aim of the training system is to ensure the safety of the nation.