COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 80, 11 August 1948, Page 4

COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING

Sir, —Your correspondent G. M. Henderson, whether in ignorance or malace, charges the 2nd N.Z.E.F. Association with being Communists sympathetic. This is, of course, vicious misrepresentation and if Mr Henderson had bothered to find out anything about ,us he would know it as such. But he betrays his intolerance and re-actionary thought by saying that ‘the/only good Communists are dead ones.’ I have little to say to a man of this mentality.. His letter, ostensibly directed to the subject of compulsory military training, affords not a single argument in favour of his case, but spills personal dislike of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. Association over every paragraph he v/rites. The. fact is that at the Annual Conference of this Association, held last week in Wellington and attended by 48 delegates representing 13,000 Kiwis from Invercargill to Whangarei, 46 delegates were directed by their branches to vote against compulsory military training as conspiring against industrial and economic recovery from the war just finished, weakening our aid to Britain ind perpetuating archaic conceptions of war fear.

Thus, in marked contrast from the undemocratic junta-control of the. N.Z.R.S.A. which failed to consult its branches throughout the country of this highly contentious issue, the 2nd N.Z.E.F. Association does speak' authoritatively for a large body of Kiwis. . Mr 'Henderson, with his ;i R.S.A. bias.and his charitable desire to see us silenced and .eliminated ,is not likely.to be impressed by any viewsother than his own and since he' Quotes Major General Sir .Howard Kippenberger as . ‘regretting the existence. of our Association’,, advance:, four authorities who are. battleships to pinnaces when set ove# against the opinions of "those who would regihierit NeW "Zealand into a semi-militarised armed camp on no better grounds than, war hysteria-.- - "r ~ •* r:■<’>' The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery, does not agree with Sir How-; ard, when the latter, as reported in ‘Ttruth’ said: ‘And that training can only be given through such an institution as. the, Army, .Talk of physical training-just -does not bear on the subject at all.’ Lord Montgomery was reported three weeks ago at Camberley Staff . College thus: ‘Main is an important weapon in war, and science has to ensure that the soldier is physically fit—even if eventually his job is only to press a button.’ General F. C. Fuller, famous British war historian, writing in the Encyclopedia Britainnica said: ‘The theory of conscription has run its course and is today out of date. Smaller armies in which quality will replace the quantity theory are paramount. The fighting armies of the future will be volunteers, highly professional, highly paid and consequently, comparatively small. This is the whole tendency of presentday military evolution.’ The London “Times” military correspondent, Britain’s foremost military historian, Captain Liddell Hart, when asked whether Britain ought to keep a conscript army in peacetime, replied: ‘lf it does that it will make a mockery of victory for it would surrender the vital principle ior which'we are fighting. The -system of conscription has been the foster-parent of modern totalitarianism. It has been one of the main factors for paving the way for bigger but not better yars—and in precipitating them.’ Hanson Baldwin, famous American authority on military affairs, said recently: ‘The discipline our

young men need is that provided by a job they respect. The army, save for the few who are profesionally inclined towards an army career, does little to give this real discipline. It does much to destroy it.’ These authoritative opinions are reinforced, I believe, by the overwhelming sentiment of the almost universal experience of Kiwis themselves in the crucible of war. ,My Association, therefore, , opposes peacetime conscription ' for military purposes as having little special: sense and no compelling authority. . Yours etc., For 2nd N.Z.E.F. Association Inc. KENNETH H. MELVIN, Dominion President. Auckland, August 5.