NEW DEFENCE SCHEME

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 220, 18 January 1911, Page 7

NEW DEFENCE SCHEME

GENERAL GODLEY INTERVIEWED. ADVANTAGES OP JOINING THE TERRITORIALS. MEANING OF ORGANISATION. Auckland, aJnuary 14. General Godley, interviewed to-day, made it clear that some of the working details of the new defence scheme have not yet been decided upon. For instance, General Godley could say nothing very definite as to 'what would eventually be done to train in arms the young men of the country who are not. attached to any territorial unit. "I can say this, however," the Commander remarked, "that we hope to impress so many of our young men with the desirability of joining the Territorial forces that there will only be a very small residue left to be dealt with under the general training section. Of course it must be remembered that the members of the Territorial Force are to be no less compoilsorily trained than the unattached residue. Everyone who joins the Territorials now does so with the knowledge that his training and service is compulsory, but he will undergo his training under the most favorable conditions possible. It has not yet been decided whether the general training of the unattached will be done in central camps or whether it can be done in areas, but in cither ease il do not think the work can be as pleasing or as -satisfactory for the individual as if he were in the Territorial Forces."

General Godley made frequent use of the word ''organisation" in such a specialised meaning that perhaps he niiaht be allowed to explain what a military man 'understands by it. "Organisation implies a great many things," he explained. "It implies the proper grouping of units of the different arms in suitable proportions. It has been found by experience in the British Army that certain proportions are the most suitable, and we must see to it that our proportions conform to those standards, which are the same as those adopted elsewhere throughout the Empire. The aim of our scheme will be to organise our forces so that New Zealand brigades will be on the same basis as that adopted in all the British dominions, and to ensure that in the event of war New Zealand brigades could take the field witli similarly organised brigades from any other parts of the Empire." The Commandant has no sympathy with the theories of the man who frequently and loudly declares that the defence question can be solved by training the manhood of the country to shoot. "It is this question of organisation which makes the theory of training men to I shoot without forming thorn into proper ■ fighting units an impossible idea from a military point of view. A complex business cannot be run by teaching the men in it only one branch of their duties, even if it is an important one, and you can't hope to run the complex business of training an army in any such way. I don't like to speak too bluntly on'tin point, but T assure you that the ifitian is quite impossible."