MILITARY TRAINING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5055, 22 November 1926, Page 1

MILITARY TRAINING.

SHOULD COMPULSION CEAS® ? VIEWS OF A MINISTER. At St. Andrew’s Church, Hamilton, on Sunday last, the Rev. H. G. Gilbert, during a forceful sermon on “Problems of the Church,” expressed the opinion that the- time had come when cojnpulsory military training should cease in this Dominion. He pointed out that the estimates for .the year on defence totalled £1,000,000, and the proposition had bee»n seriously Put forward that the young men of the Dominion should be required to go into camp for three months in the year. This idea had been dropped, but the fact that it had been put forwarded indicated the rend of opinion in some quarters. The present generation knew what war was, and dreaded it,' but the younger people had had no such experience, and it was a psychological fact that if war was prepared for, war would come. On the last occasion they had had as, a najtion to take up arms—there, was no alternative. But conditions were different now, and they should assiduously pursue the paths of peace. The League of Nations, might not be perfect ', but he believed it had been conceived in the spirit of the Prince of ‘Peace, and was working in the spirit in which it had been conceived. The preacher urged ,tha<t an earnest effort should be made to disperse the atmosphere of national fear, the jealousy and suspicion now so much in evidence, and tc cultivate those things, which make for confidence and goodwill.