BOY SCOUTS AND CADETS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 280, 19 April 1911, Page 5

BOY SCOUTS AND CADETS

■». STATEMENT BY GENERAL GODLEY. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. Major-General Godley, general officer commanding the New Zealand Forces, states that there seems to be an impression in some quarters that training in the Boy Scouts or in Boy Seout cadets can take the place of training in the senior cadets. This impression is erroneous, and should be removed by all concerned with the Boy Scout organisation. The position is that in order to assist the Boy Scout movement, the Defence Act has sanctioned the incorporation of Boy Scout units inthe organisation of senior cadets who may be called Boy Scout 9 Cadets, and military authorities are accordingly prepared to accept them in senior cadet companies or smaller units of Boy Scouts. By law every youth between the ages of 14 and 18 must be a senior cadet. Having become a senior cadet, there is then noi objection on the part of the military authorities to his also being a Boy Scout should he so desire. In fact, General Godley and the military authorities arc thoroughly in sympathy with the Boy Scout movement, and General Godley is vice-president of the Boy Scouts in the Dominion. But it is to be distinctly understood that every boy between 14 and 18 years of age must be a senior cadet, and that in the case of those who arc Boy Scouts they must be senior cadets first and Boy Scouts or Boy Scout Cadets afterwards. There also seems to be a further misapprehension that it is not necessary fot boys now belonging to Boy Scouts oi Boy Scout Cadets to register themselves as senior cadets. This is wrong. Every boy between the age of 14 and 18, whether a Boy Scout or not, has by law to fill in a registration form and post it to the nearest area sergeant-major in accordance with the military training notice latety issued, from the conditions of which Boy Scouts are no more exempt than any other class of the community. As regards the training of Boy Scouts in the senior cadet organisation in which they will be incorporated as Boy Scout Cadets, they will in the first instance have to perform the drills, etc., as laid down by law and regulation for all senior cadets (i.e., all youths in the Dominion between 14 and 18), and having done these, they will then be free to do any special Boy Scout work that they please. As a matter of fact, a good deal of the senior cadet training will be on the same lines as that now done by the Boy Scouts, and, as has been explained, the Boy Scouts will be given facilities for doing their senior cadet training in units composed entirely of Boy Scouts, and the military authorities will be glad to receive from the heads of the Boy Scout movement any proposals for the formation of Boy Scout companies, or smaller units. It is to be hoped that in order to help the military authorities, and avoid a great rush at the last moment, all youths between 14 and 18 belonging to the Boy Scouts will procure the regulation forms from the post office, fill them in, and send them to the nearest area sergeant-major as soon as possible. Colonel Cossgrove has read this article, and quite understands and agrees with the position.