THE NEW DEFENCE MOVEMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 868, 14 July 1910, Page 4

THE NEW DEFENCE MOVEMENT.

* So far as the main principles arc concerned, the new Defence Bill, which was circulated in the* House last week, gives effect to the suggestions set out by Field-Marshal Loud Kitcjjexer in his report to the Government, and en that score the measure should receive the support of both political parties. A careful examination of the secondary provisions of the Bill, however, discloses certain points which call for some comment. Section 7, for example, is a new provision altogether, referring to a suggested basis of control 'which may be adopted by the Minister for Education with regard to the Boy Scouts. A somewhat similar provision was added to the Bill which was placed on the Statute Book last year. That provision staled simply that the Minister might, at the request of the controlling authority, take over the control' of the Boy Scouts, who would, in that event, fonn part of the Junior Cadets, and might ryiitherein till the age of sixteen

years. The new 'provision states thai in the event of the controlling authority consenting to the transler of the Boy Scouts to the conlrol < I' the Minister for Lducation, llic.v will form a separate branch of Ine Junior Cadets, designated the "p'Scout Cadets/'' and may continue therein till the age of eighteen years, the amount of their training to he equivalent to thuL fixed for the Senior Cadets. Thereafter they will be drafted into the general training section. In other words, iScctioit 7 makes it possible for the whole of the Junior and Senior Cadets of the Dominion to be transformed into an army of scout cadets by a process of development, governed simply by the consent of the present civic controlling authority. If this transformation implied the disappearance of the absurd parade of militarism which is a distinguishing feature of the present Junior Cadet force, but guaranteed a satisfactory measure of the military training which we think is necessary for the Senior Cadets, and which was provided for the latter in the Act of last year,' we should nut feci disposed to regret it. But the following section of the new Hill would seem to indicate that the training to be imposed upon the Senior Cadets will be very materially curtailed as compared with the training provided in the Act of 130!). In that Act the maximum training prescribed for the Senior Cadets in any year was "six whole-day drills, half-day drills, and twenty-four night drills, or their equivalents." Section 8 of the new Bill fixes the maximum compulsory training for the Senior Cadets at sixty-four hours—a very considerable difference, and one which will hardly satisfy the advocates of universal training as being an adequate concession as a set-off against the surrender of the principle so far as it previously applied to those over eighteen years of age. These two sections of the Bill should, in our opinion, be very carefully investigated by Parliamentary critics when the measure is under discussion. We intend, a't a later stage, to give some attention to the proposed constitution of the Appeal Board provided under Section 10 of the Bill.