Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1906. THE BOY WITH THE GUN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3705, 28 August 1906, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1906. THE BOY WITH THE GUN.

Both Houses of Parliament have threatened the child with the fire and air-arm and other kind of gun. The New Zealand smallboy has got into such a reprehensible habit of shooting his best friend by accident, sending strangers to their graves in error and “ potting ” the neighbours cows by mistake, that it is time something stronger than a threat was used; The Bill for the suppression of the sale of firearms and ammunition provides that no person under the age of t 6 years shall be available for a gun, and as most of the deaths and accidents attributable to the festive pea-rifle have occurred when a boy of tender years had control of the trigger, it seems that, should the Bill pass, one may travel round with a greater degree of safety in the near future.

For our part we are decidedly of opinion that every boy of the age of 12 or upwards should be as familiar with a rifle as he is with a slate-pencil, and we don’t know how that Bill, if it becomes an Act, is going to affect the defence of this country. A great number of Defence Force cadets in the colony are under the age of sixteen, and

it seems to us that should this Bill become law about three parts of the people who shoot will be prohibited from doing so any more. We join issue with those who believe mat the boy with the gun is one of the most dangerous nuisances in New Zealand, but if any Act is going to make the ' •ery small amount of rifle-shooting .me in the colony still less, it would be better that the Act did not pass. Kxcept in one instance, tuere has never been a boy-and-rifle aerdent in New Zealand while competent adults were on the spot. # * ;■< Nearly every boy in most of the schools in New Zea’aud is a State School cadet. He does not use a rifle. It is only the older boys in the Defence Cade ,s who use the rifle. Wc believe that any boy who is a State school cadet and w 10 at the present moment carries a piece of wood about, should be taught to shoot. He should take to shooting just as he takes to foothill. It would be an easy matter. No boy should be allowed the possession of a rifle —only the use of it, in the presence of a responsible adult. Practice should be frequent and ammunition only

hsuc.l to the boys who were at the ilriug- mound. No boy should be allowed to take a rifle home and he should be searched for am munition before he left the range or other place where practice was in progress.

It is rather curious that on the same day the Bill for the suppression of the small hoy rifler was introduced into the legislative Council, news came from Auckland of the formation of a League for Universal Defensive training. The whole essence of the business of this League is the training of boys to shoot—a thing they are likely to be prohibited from doing if the Bill mentioned does not exclude schoolboys who are in charge of competent persons. There is more need of boy-shots in Near Zealand Hum boy" geniuses. If every boy over 12 and up to 21 had a thorough knowledge of rifle-shooting,' we might disband the volunteer force to-morrow. If the people ot New Zealand recognised that everybody should be in the best possible nick to stop an invader, and that it is farcical to pretend to believe that tic present volunteer system is ‘ defence ’ ’ they would flock to see rifle matches between schoolboy teams just as they flock to see football now.

The fact that the people take absolutely no interest in the defence of the country, is the best evidence that they regard the said “ defence ”as a farce. The question is not how to popularise volunteering, but how to popularise defence —not defence by those few people who like to wear a uniform, but by every ablebodied male over the age of 12 in the country. Would you, an ablebodied man', supposing an enemy was in New Zealand, want' to remain at home and allow men who perhaps were not so physically fit as you to take the brunt ? In fact, do you think that a war in New Zealand would be' fought by organised volunteers or by tli 2 men of the country ? The answer is so apparent that there is 11 o' need to make it.

To howl for more volunteers and for a new Imperial commandant and for red coats is jingoism. To advocate that every boy in New Zealand shall be a marksman it loyalty. The men who talk inert loudly in a “ loyal ’ ’ way av: usually the least loyal. Always ask such a man if he is willing to “do ” something as well as “ say” something. If he has half-a-dozen boys, is he willing lo make them capable of defending their country, not necessarily as uniformed machines, but as patriots who are better shots than the said ndformed ones ? It is all very well to attempt to stir up pride of race and patriotism in the schoolboy and the young man by telling him what Nelson and Wellington did. What can the boy and the young man do now ? What have you taught him to do ? Well you have taught him to “salute the flag ” and sing “God-save ” and march in fours and line the streets so that they should look well. That isn’t patriotism, its simple mummery. Telling a boy how Nelson b_at the French isn’t teaching the boy bow to shoot Russians or anybody else, should he ever be needed to do such a thing.

I,KT us hope that he will never be called upon to raise a rifle in anger. While we may hope this piously, there isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t fit him for emergencies. We don't want a nation of blood-thirsty young swashbucklers. VV o want a nation that is so convinced oi the necessity of peace that it shall force

peace on others by being stronger for war. -We want New Zealand boys to recognise that from Agji point of view that New Zealand the first consideration and the Empire to which it belongs next. That noise is not loyluy* that “ saluting the flag ’’ is not defence and that feathefs in a hat doesn’t make a patriot.