The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1912. ANTI-DEFENDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 202, 23 February 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1912. ANTI-DEFENDERS.

A school committee is an important body, but there are occasions when it may exaggerate its own importance and become grotesque. The Huntly School CoMmittee passed a, resolution dehying the Defence Department the use of the school (which is the reason of its j existence as a body) for the use of drills J for territorial soldiers. The school building does not belong to the Huntly School Committee, nor to the controlling Education Board, nor to anyone except the whole of-., the people of New Zealand. The matter would be unworthy •f notice except from the point of view that every school under every school committee in New Zealand is national property. The people of New Zealand have endorsed the military scheme which compels young men to bear 'arms, and sueh a scheme is the only fair one, since it lays down that it is the duty of every able-bodied person to protect the life of the nation and its property. If the Huntly School Committee can demand that the State must not allow its soldiers to drill in the building, it has a perfect right to demand that the troops shall not use the schoolroom in time of war for a storeroom, a fort, a hospital, a barracks or any other military purpose. The territorial forces are embodied, and are being trained, in order that the members of the Huntly School Committee, and everybody else, shall be as secure as possible, but at this small body objects to having the country defended, it forgets its citizenship in a desire to advertise its passion for publicity and its antipathy to national decisions. It is impossible to conceive any ground of objection to a scheme that does not discriminate between able-bodied persons, aud it will be a very remarkable thing if ithe authorities permit themselves to be dominated by a small body of objectors. The sue*ess of the Huntly committee in preventing the use of this school will establish a precedent for other school committees, and as many school committees seem chosen especially for theii unfitness and narrowness of view, the self-advertising plan of fightiag a State Department may spread if this little outburst is not nipped. The idea of every anti-defender is that he would fight like a wild cat if he were forced to fight, but that nothing should make him get readj to fight. It is an unfortunate position. In such a matter as the action of this particular school committee the duty of the duty of the authorities is obvious. They should simply decline to take aay notice of a few of the million people who own the school, and use it for the benefit of the remaining owners. It is not a matter for the "tact" of the Defence Department, but for its action.