DEFENCE NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 81, 29 December 1934, Page 2

DEFENCE NOTES

4 Anglo-Indian Problem ENLISTMENT IN ARMY (By “Liaison.”) Before the Great War, the term “Anglo-Indian” was synonymous .with “sun-dried bureaucrat” and was understood to mean an Englishman who had spent many years in India, drawing pay and shooting tigers before tiffin; indeed, we fear that in certain journalistic circles this idea still persists, says the “Fighting Forces.” Officially, the term is now understood to mean a person of mixed Indian and European blood, a member of that community which before the war was inaccurately known as Eurasian —a term too wide in its implications. Until comparatively recent years the subordinate ranks of the Indian Railway and Telegraph Departments, were recruited almost exclusively from this community. but during the war, when approximately half the young Anglo-Indians of military age served in the fighting forces, their places were taken by Indians. and these Indians have stuck. It is therefore not too much to say that while these Anglo-Indians were away fighting for the country whose soldiers gave them birth, they lost their chief eivil markets. Unemployment among Anglo-Indians is now acute, due to the aforesaid crowding out by Indians, and the question of enlisting them into the Indian Army is once again being pressed. Commercial Bombers. There are a great number of people who say that, even if the nations had agreed to abolisli bombing aircraft this would not constitute a real guarantee against bombing raids in the future, says a writer in an English journal. There are other types of inilitary aeroplanes which could . certainly be adapted to carry bombs, or, if all military aircraft were abolished,

then civil aircraft would be a very real menace. There are many civil aircraft today which have ample carrying power and could be converted into bombers without very great difficulty, and in a very short space of time. Mr. Anthony Fokker, the world-famous aeroplane designer, said last August: “A first-class, fast civil aeroplane is basically not much different from a high-powered military aeroplane. My Own latest creation, the F. 36. can carry six tons, which* might include two tons of bombs, and can fly at a speed of nearly 200 miles an hour. Who would imagine this, looking at this peaceful plane, when it go.es on the Amsterdam-Batavia run, with its 32 passengers, beds, and stewards 1” Peace Tactics. The following is passed on for what it is worth: —Not so many years ago in a very ancient regiment there served a verr gallant but equally eccentric officer. He was one of those people who relieve the monotony of a rather uniform type by being quite different to anyone else. For instance, he always ’insisted on wearing bis gaiters like a gamekeeper's. He could play strange instruments and would turn young officers green with envy by clacking his hands like castanets. Being different ' he was bound to come in for a good deal of persecution which in time had sharpen- ■ ed a latent instinct of cunning. From the store of his ripe experience of war and peace he evolved a theory that to ensure success in peace time it was essential to employ quite different tactics to those that wqfild gain the day in war. Developing his theory he would point out how in peace-time exercises one gets kudos for~tbe accomplished fact, and by the end of the day few people will bother to inquire how such a situation was achieved. “For instance.” he would say, “if you are ordered to attack and capture a position never mind about the attack, but make quite sure of the capture.” Very unmoral, but frequently exceedingly successful in establishing an officer’s renutation as a “thruster.”