MILITARY TRAINING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 282, 25 August 1919, Page 6

MILITARY TRAINING

Sir,—Many protests have been issued all over the Dominion against the organised attitude of the' Presbyterian ministers to military training. LieutenantColonel Colquhoun, at Dunedui, has been giving his testimony, and he says that, there is no doubt whatever that it they get. young men for a continuous period, say for three or four months at a time, it would make for military efficiency. He did not believe in the suggestion that military camps would have a bad moral effect. He had expencnct of camps both in New Zealand ■ and abroad, and he had no time forjuclv at argument as has been put forward. ln« effect' Of camp life be to make voung men more tolerant of one another, and tliov would come back to civil hie from the military training better_ men, better fitted to carry out their ordinary duties of civil life, wid stronger, no. only physically, but also morally. Will you allow mo to say that I entirely agree with Lieutenant-Colonel Col' quhoun, and I have no doubt that Mr. Sievwright and your other corresponded are quite right with regard tci military training as being essential not only In the interests of our young men. themselves. but in the promotion of that loj ftltv, patriotism, and demotion to duty which are as has been eaul, amon p the highest moral qualities in.any naticn.I am, etc., POILU.