THE VALUE OF MILITARY TRAINING.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12750, 22 April 1909, Page 4

THE VALUE OF MILITARY TRAINING.

LIEUTENANT-CoLONEL ALSAGEE POLLOCK takes Mr Haldane severely to task in an article on "Making or Marring Things Military" in the Nineteenth Century and After, for having cut down the numbers of the regular army before the "special •reserve' 'and the "Territorial army" were in being. "So strong," he writes, "is the force of habit (the habit in this case of declining any responsibility that can possibly be left to some superior authority) that men who are neither ignorant, foolish,, nor unpatriotic have permitted, without practical protest, the commission of a most reprehensible act at the dictation of the rump of the Radical Party." He goes on to urge that the provision for training the territorials is utterly unsuitable and l inadequate, and to lament that British officers are creatures of routine. Point is lent to these denunciations by a quotation from a speech delivered last July by Lord Cromer, who told the British Government that "their main duty is to make provision betimes for the European conflict which may not improbably be forced upon us before many years have elapse^ a ger of which I, in common, I believe, with most ' people^.- who can speak with real authority on foreign affajirs,.are very firmly convinced." The contributor approves of the organisation of the territorials, and says that, "thanks to a theatrical stimulant, we seem likely to obtain the necessary personnel," but the 'final making or marring of the national army will depend chiefly, he says, upon whether those who join it are to be given as recruits a sound course of genuine training.