Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1943. YOUTHS AND WAR SERVICE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1943. YOUTHS AND WAR SERVICE.

AT its face value, an announcement by the Prime Minister regarding the release from military training of lads under age for overseas service is to be welcomed unicseivedlj. , Mi. Fraser said that arrangements had been made to release from full-time service in the Army youths of 18 and 19 years of age who are anxious to return to civil life in order to resume studies or apprenticeships, or to undertake their chosen vocations, and also that “under existing conditions” it is not proposed to call into camp for full-time service any youths of 18 and 19 years of age, though it will be open to them to volunteer for sei vice in the Navy or the Air Force. Lads who wish to lemain in the Army will also be allowed to do so. Apparently this means that unless conditions change lads fvill not henceforth be called into camp for full-time service until they attain the age of 20. As it bears on the position o those who will now be enabled to exchange a deadening camp routine for study or for industrial or other training this is a very satisfactory change indeed. Whether lads of 18 oi are to enter the Air Force or Navy is of course a matter of thenown inclinations and aptitudes and of the numbers that can tins be absorbed. It greatly affects this aspect of the position that in the Air Force, and to a considerable extent also in the Navy, lads are given training which, apart from its immediate puipose, wilfbe likely to stand them in good stead in later life. The intimation that lads of 18 and 19 are to be exempted from compulsory full-time military service no doubt means that they will remain subject to Territorial or other military training from the age of 18 onward. No doubt this can be arranged, as it was in pre-war years, without any undue inteifeience with studies or with other civil training. It is not in doubt that manv lads will benefit greatly from the concession now made, and will be in a position to make very much better and more profitable use of their time, in formative and impressionable years, than when they were required to spend all their time, in many instances most unprofitably, in military camps. Apart from the economic importance of an uninterrupted civil training of youth, it has rightly been emphasised, that it is most undesirable, save on account of some imperative and compelling reason, that lads in the years of approach to manhood should be cut away from the wholesome influences of home and family life. Lads now permitted to enjoy these benefits will still be able to undergo the preliminary training that will enable them to take part in the defence of their country should it be attacked or to fit themselves for service overseas should the Avar last long enough to involve their being called upon.