COMPULSORY TRAINING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 361, 23 May 1928, Page 8

COMPULSORY TRAINING

SPIRITED DEBATE PREPARED N ESS—NOT AGGRESSION ta7y W t° ra a , S n P p C a tS °L C r Pl " 50ry *■- tar-y training were discussed free!. by a meeting of th e DeveenfJ Presbyterian Literary and De”£ mg Society last evening. 1 romnuLi.fn* hai “» thacompu.sion was nt:-British ana the other 1 and that our based upon preparedness A? aggression " The Rev. W. Lawson Marsh presided, explained that the Sion did not deal w,th the morah^ Mr. J. A. Lee. M.P., attacked th compulsory training idea as anti-Brutish. While the wax Prussian;-in had .“.needed in jJ? 4 sia. he said, it had left it firmly lishea in New Zealand, whei j,™?' £8,000.000 had been spent since pulsory militarism was introdneL The fact that between 40.000 aaitJX boys had been brought courts under tins law. made him cues tion whether the law made good C S. zens: it did not make good soldier. The real idea, he said, was to an expedition ry force available Compulsion at the formative period 5 a boy s life uprooted him from hi. educational courses and detracts! from the best in eitiz€>nship. Mr. S. Black. M A., laid stress on the value of disciplinary training and said the New- Zealand system was not militaristic in the true acceptance of the term. It would not produce military class, though such had been evolved in England where compulsioa did not exist. With privileges also went duties. In New Zealand emphasis was laid on physical training and the system was designed to secur* preparedness without aggression. ST. JOHN AMBULANCE INDIGNANT ENERGETIC PROTEST Press Association, WANGANUI. Tuesday. At a meeting of the Wanganui Si. John Ambulance Brigade this evening the following resolution was carried: “That th© Wanganui Division of the St. John Ambulance Brigade places on record its disapproval of the action of Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., of Christchurch, who, in dealing with a recent case of objection to military training, allowed the claim of.defendant, providing he remained a member of th* St. John Ambulance Brigade until h« reached the age of 21 3'ears. “As members of the brigade department of the Order of St. John, senior branch of the Red Cross Organisation of the British Empire, we enter into s specific agreement to maintain such a standard of organised efficiency that we shall be prepared to serve as auxiliaries to the medical establishment of either the Navy or Army in time of war, as well as to civic authorities or the Health Department of the Government. This being the case our ranks are not made up of objectors, conscientious or otherwise, but of men prepared to help to win a war or to serve the community in times uX peace.” A copy of the resolution is to be forwarded to magistrates and to ail divisions of the brigade throughout the Dominion.