THE TERRITORIALS

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1929, Page 8

THE TERRITORIALS

REJECTION Off RECRUITS

NO NEED FOR ALARM. That there is no cause for alarm at the number of rejections from the Territorial Force for physical reasons is the reassuring statement made by the General Officer Commanding the'Now Zealand .Military Forces (Major-general R. Young) in his annual report. General Young says that all Territorials and Cadets.who -became eligible by ago for posting to the Territorial Force in June, 1928, were graded into categories according to their physical development, and selection of. the numbers required to bring units up to establishment, hut not beyond it, was made from those of the highest physical standard. This necessarily resulted in a larger proportion of rejections than usual, and certain newspapers and sections of the public erroneously concluded that the abnormal number of rejections was an indication that the physique of our youths was falling off and that the training in the Cadets was not having the beneficial effect tnat was claimed for it by the supporters of compulsory military training. It is therefore desired to emphasise the fact that the classification according.to age, weight, height and chest measurement, and the ' selection of the best physically developed youths, was an innovation, and was prompted by the necessity of reducing by the most economical and fairest method the number for training in the Territorial Force. “It may be suggested that those who were not up to the physical standard should, m the interests of the country generally, he given a course of physical training; but this would mean extra expenditure, and ■ the Defence vote cannot bear the burden,” says the general. “ The policy is therefore to select for the Territorial Force the best material available (subject to their living wftliin three miles of a drill centre) in order that the money available for the purpose may be expended on the training of those who, in the event of New Zealand being called upon to'defend itself against attack, would be the first line of defence.”

The following figures show the number of rejections from the Territorial fforce ifor various causes at the annual postings in June, 192S:—(a) Cadets available for posting to the Territorial Force, 11,036; (b) below physical standard, 848 (7.29 per cent.); (c) permanently unfit, 832 (7.15 per cent); (d) temporarily unfit, 140 (1.2 per cent); (e) posted to non-effective list on account of living beyond the training radius, 4410 (37.9 per cent); (f) posted to the non-effective list for other reasons, 64 (0.55 per cent). Those enumerated in (b), j (c), and (f) were not medically examined.

From this it will be seen that the medically unfit and those who failed to reach the physical standard totalled 1820, or 25.41 per cent, of the total number examined (7162.) i The physical standard for our Territorial Force is equal to that required of the British Regular Army, although the medical examination is .not such a searching one, and the percentage of rejections for the British Regular Army in 1926 was 34. For our young men of 18 years who have still a few years to develop it is not considered that the percentage of rejections, in view of the high standard set, is such ns to cause concern.