CANDIDATES FOR SOLDIERING.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1019, 7 January 1911, Page 7

CANDIDATES FOR SOLDIERING.

CRITICISM. OR MERE CARPING? (By Telegraph—Special Correspondent.) Christchurch, January 6. The correspondent who wrote to tho local newspaper complaining that candidates for admission to tho. Australian .Military College havo to go to. the expense of going to Wellington for examination, returns to'the charge this morning as follows':—

. "Major-General Godloy, in attempting to justify, tho authorities in bringing •the candidates for tho Australian Military.. College to Wellington, compares tho position with that of boys going for examination to Sandhurst and. Woolwich. ■ In this he appears to have over l looked _all the local differences that give point to tho feeling—not that tho •Wellington boys aro being favoured, which unpleasantly suggests "favouritism",, and has not oven been hinted at, but that the Wellington lads gain a decided advantage over boys from other parts of tho Dominion. It may bo noted: (1) That the boys going to Sandhurst or Woohvieh are the children of well-to-do parents, to whom tho expenditure of a five pound note, moro or less, is of 110 vital importance in a matter of this sort; (2) the boys have mostly been at big public schools, and have been specially prepared for a year, or perhaps two, for the examination (New Zealand candidates have had a bare month's notice). Neither Sandhurst nor Woolwich is an important residential district-,, so that; practically, ill the boys come from other parts of tho country. No advantage thus comes" to one boy over the others. As a rulo the distances aro much less. I need not waste-your time pointing out the op]xisito conditions that obtain here, except, perhaps, that. those who travel by boat would require to allow an extra day to recover ill caso of a bad passago across tho Strait, but it is evident that, if the various junior aud senior scholarships and She university examinations can be satisfactorily held in tho various ■ centres,.,an examination • such as this' should- hot present much difficulty."