MILITARY TRAINING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 171, 18 January 1912, Page 7

MILITARY TRAINING.

To the Editor. Sir,—Your leading article on "Our atizen Army 1 ' is. both practical an d sensible so far as it goes, ,but you are assuming that the Defence Department has gone the right way to givTour men le training required to enable them to defend our homes. I quite with you that.'the anti-militarist is a> dream and, in some respects, iii advance of his time. There ie, however, a most important point that has been overlooked in regard to the movement which I indicate by asking the question: Are we going to adopt the English military system of training—a system that proved so disastrous in South Africa? In our keen desire to hide our military incapacity from unfriendly nations, this aspect of the question has been hushed. It is, nevertheless, a secret knowledge of the grave faults of our military systeni in the past, and having no assurance that the same shall not he continued has caused our defenee scheme to be accepted so coldly and suspiciously. Speaking with a personal knowledge of and experience of the South African war and dismal failure of the English military system there, T would have much greater confidence in our citizen army had we discarded the typical English officer and in his place supplied a few fighting Boer farmers to train our young men.—l am, etc., ' ' M.F.