"DEMILITARISATION."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 312, 29 June 1912, Page 4

"DEMILITARISATION."

The New Zealand cadet system was inaugurated as a direct result of the South African war. Its foundation was baaed on the military fervor fathered and fomented by that great Imperialist, the late- Mr. Scddon. It was, in effect, the beginning and base of the semi-compul-sory military service which has been accepted with more or less alacrity in this Dominion, and it gave an opportunity to make appointments of officers who did not know then or subsequently whether they were servants of the -Education or Defence Departments. It was generally agreed when the schoolboy cadet system was inaugurated that its disciplinary value would be great. It was a quaint belief, and not complimentary to the education system. Practically the authorities agreed that as schoolmasters could not get discipline in school, the samo schoolmasters l , attired in military garb, would be able to obtain it in the playground. The suggestion that the State school cadet is better material for the territorial instruetor than the State schoolboy who Is not a ead-et, is mere hot air. The State school cadet knows nothing of any essential military matter when he leaves school, and there is absolutely no reason why he should know it, seeing that- he is then to be handled by the proper military authorities. His existence as a toy-soldier is merely the result of political self-advertisement, and the man who asserts that the system has improved either the discipline or the military efficiency of the schoolboy would class "marking time" with aggressive fighting as of equal value to the Empire. The chief utility of the State school cadet i* to take part in major and minor ceremonial affairs. The idea that the cadet as now embodied is a useful unit of defence is punctured by the knowledge that he is not armed—and should not be. He learns obedience to the word of command and simple squad and company movements—'the whole of which could be learned in the first fortnight of territorial instruction, The Minister for Education suggests- the demilitarising of the cadets. If the cadets are.military they are armed.. As they are not armed they are not military. As they are not military there is no excise for them. If the officers who are in control of the cadets are military officers, they should do military work with the military forces. If the schoolmaster cadet officers rank as citizen officers i» the territorial forces, they should be attached to the territorial battalions. If the school cadet system is military and is to remain military, every company of cadets should be part of a territorial regiment or battalion, and, as cadets, should be taken away from the control of the Education Department wheri in uniform or massed for military exercise. It is agreed that the cadet system gives boys a chance of the open-air exercise that is more essential to • their' development as sound, healthy citizens than the tramming of innumerable subjects into brains that cannot hold a tithe of them. But it may be shown'-that the common everyday boy is an open-air animal by instinct, and that he .will get all the air and exercjso necessary to his development without being .constantly told to "form fours," or other .set and ordered forms of military manoeuvre. The men who are in the only position to'' give a useful opinion on the schoolboy cadet question and their inflective, guns are the schoolmasters, whose discipline in the school is questioned, but whose discipline on the parade ground is assumed to be useful. It would be useful before the Minister "demilitarises"'the-cadets for a poll to be taken by post of all schoolmasters, who might be asked if the cadet' system is of service either to the educational or to the military organisation. The Minister, perhaps, is quite sound when he mentions that there is no need for. ineffective pseudo-military cadets now that every able-bodied schoolboy must become a citizen-soldier as soon as his school days are over. If it can be proved that the "military" training of schoolboys is really military and makes young soldiers of them, making it easier to train them ultimately, there, may be an excuse for the continuance of the present system. If the system is to be dimilitarised there is no excuse for a cadet system at all.