FIGHTING MEN FIRST

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 95, 16 January 1919, Page 6

FIGHTING MEN FIRST

Sir, —I see that seven cadets returned from Duntroon are to be sent Home to help demobilise the New Zcalanders, > "ill' order that they may obtain military experience." Well, if they have not acquired military knowledge after four years, they will never make, soldier ■ Surely we have scores pf_ officers with military experience quite able and willing and capable of doing all the demobilising necessary. As a — parent of sons who volunteered and left for active service at 20, I again protest against' this injustice, and I say that some M.P. should rnake.it bis business to have the whole system altered.- The ages of these cadets should be ascertained. If they are over twenty eurely they could have gone to tho . war, and gained all necessary experience like other men. They have escaped gobig to the war, other men have made their positions possible, and' I say send the fighting officers Home who have done their deity, though they in many eases were not any older than these cadets.

Also, why this Duntroon College at all for the next ten years? New Zealand will only have a Territorial army, and surely there are plenty of officers who have suffejed in this war ready and qualified to take all positions available. Also, I do not think the New Zealand soldiers at Home will be overdelighted to see youths, non-fighters, sent to order them about. They will think as tlieir parents do, that this is the right of the officers who have led them in the field. —I am, etc., A PARENT.