Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1940. OLDER MEN FOR WAR SERVICE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1940. OLDER MEN FOR WAR SERVICE.

APART from the excellent spirit it manifests and its value as a lead the offer of the Minister for Public Works (Mi Semple) to serve in. the Army, preferably m a company, without a commission or any special privilege.',, i.nsi. pointedly a question of far-reaching importance. 1 hat question is whether it. is practicable and would be advantageous-to employ in anv form or branch of war service overseas lit men of au’ao’e well beyond the military age. Service within the Dominion need not meantime be considered m this connection. If New Zealand were attacked, or were likely to be attacked, on its own soil, the military age no doubt would be raised as a matter of course. As matters stand, if men above the normal age are to render effective military service, that service in the main must be rendered in war theatres overseas.

There appears to be a very widespread .feeling that the youthful manhood of the country should be. drawn upon to fill our fighting ranks only in the extent to which that is really necessary. The supreme and overshadowing consideration is military'efficiency. It is recognised, for example that youth must virtually monopolise the honour of serving m the Air Force, because men past the stage of youth are incapable as a rule of satisfying the exacting standards applied to airmen. Similar standards apply to a considerable extent in other branches of military service, but. that they need apply universally is by no means clear. There lias been a good deal ol complaint among returned soldiers of the last war that they are being excluded unwarrantably Irom giving the country the benefit of their experience and unforgotten grasp ol the essentials of the art of'war. Australia, it is said, is including in tier expeditionary troops a stiffening of older’men with war experience in the ratio ol one to ten and Canada is repotted to be drawing even more freely on her war veterans.

In the extent- to which men above- the ordinary military age are capable of standing the strain ol service in the field, even those without war experience, but possessed of special qualifications, such as those indicated by the Minister ol Public Works in his declared preference for service in a const ruction company, are entitled to consideration. There may be branches of activity at and in the immediate neighbourhood' of the fighting fronts in which extended experience in transport and in various kinds of mechanical work would be of considerable value.

The whole question of the practicability ol enlisting men above the normal military age for active service ought to be considered dispassionately on its merits, from the standpoint of national interest, and advantage. In the extent to which the burdens and risks of military service can lie undertaken efficiently by older men, it is neither right nor desirable that these burdens and risks should be monopolised by young mon still well short of having attained the prime of life. To put the matter crudely, the country can better spare its older men than those who have the best part of their lives still before them. In view of his age and on other grounds, ami in spite of the fact that he is an exceptionally vigorous individual, the offer of the Minister of Public Works may be regarded as inadmissible. The question of accepting til and useful men well above the recognised military age is, however, entitled Io serious consideration.