UNIVERSAL SERVICE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9157, 3 August 1908, Page 5

UNIVERSAL SERVICE.

IS IT IMPRACTICABLE?

STATEMENT BY THE PREMIER. "There is a tremendous current of objection amongst a very large section of the community against compulsory military training," remarked Sir Joseph \\Vard to the deputation from the New Zealand Farmers' Union Conference which waited upon him on Friday night, "and you, gentlemen,if you went outside of your immediate circles, would soon recognise it. . . The system of universal military training may . be a great goal to work for, but in a country where nine people out of every ten earn their own living, it is, I think, impracticable. It would make a tremendous inroad upon their daily work, and that is one of the reasons that make some people object to such proposals as these." In support of his contention, the Premier taid that when the Defence Council had the militia rolls made up a few months ago, in order to ascertain what people were available for active service, an idea got abroad that conscription / was about to be made the law, and Sir Joseph at that time received many, many hundreds of strenuous protests from people of all classes, and many of them from some of the leading people of this country. If the deputation wbuld go outside of its immediate ranks, it would find there could be no Government that would carry into effect a system of compulsory military training in N<iw Zealand; the public feeling was far, far toy strong against it. He realised that we needed a strong land detenre to guard ourselves against raids by a foreign enemy, for it was still impossible for us to undertake tha great expense of providing our chief'harbours with the submarines which the Imperial Conference recomrrlended as our chief means of defence. To strengthen our internal defence we should endeavour to quicken the interest in volunteering, and the effectiveness of our future internal defence could be greatly improved by instituting intermediary companies for boys who had left the school cadet corps and began to earn their own livings, but who were not of a physique or age to fit them for joining the volunteer companies. The Old Country authorities, he was pleased to say, considered that in New Zealand we were not likely to be called upon to protect ourselves against anything more than a raid. They might be wrong, but Sir Joseph held the same opinion. If anythnig more than a raid was ever attempted it would; he thought, be many, many years after the present .time, and from an Asiatic source.