TRENTHAM TRAINING SYSTEM.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2491, 18 June 1915, Page 6

TRENTHAM TRAINING SYSTEM.

DEFENCE AUTHORITY ON ITS WORKING x Of late many suggestions have been made respecting the New Zealaud method of training recruits. ■ The Defence authorities' experience of the system was related to a. Dominion representative yesterday by the Chief of the General Staff, who is more closely in touch with the matter than anyone else in the country.' The Chief of the General Staff states that the New Zealand system has worked 'splendidly. There, has not been a single hitch from the outbreak of war to the present time. Every force we have required has been raised by the time it was needed, has been got into camp on time, trained on time, and dispatched on time. The system of taking the whole of the men for a draft into training at and the. same time has made for greaten .efficiency and greater economy than any scheme of taking in men as they enlisted would have. it was important te a great degree that our forces should be efficient. and therefore the system which secured the greater efficiency was far the more valuable. If men were allowed to go straight into camp when they enlisted, recruits would bo going into Trenthain every day, and. a result would be that (among other things) the Defence staff would not be able to train nearly so many men as they are now handling. ■, A member of the Headquarters Staff pointed out that apparently New Zealand is muoh better off for recruits than Australia is.> New Zealand, has not had to alter its age limit, its height minimum, or its chest measurement minimum. Australia has made all these standards easior. . Men are taken at sft. 3in., with 33-inch chests, from eighteen years of age to forty-five and fifty years. Recruiting in New Zealand had so far been very satisfactory, but if the strength of thd New Zealand Force were increased to 50,000, the force could not be maintained { and once a force ceased to maintain its strength its usefulness depreciated tremendously—in fact, there was a partial collapse. The present strength of the New Zealand Forces was 12,000, and that was being well maintained, and apparently would have to be maintained for at least another twelve months. If the war lasted as long as it was expected to by some authorities, New Zealand would eventually send more than 50,000.