UNIVERSAL TRAINING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2499, 12 May 1909, Page 2

UNIVERSAL TRAINING.

MR. M'NAB’S VIEWS.

HE WILL STUMP THE COUNTRY.

Mr. R, M‘Nab, ex-M mister for Lands is so firmly convinced of the neeu for compulsory military training in New Zealand that he has decided to stump the country as a missionary oi the cause. He will be one of the speakers at the meeting in the Wellington Town Hall Concert -Room this week, and he will afterwards address a meeting in Auckland, and then come southwards, speaking at the principal towns of the Dominion. He anticipates that by the opening of Parliament he will liavo visited nearly every electorate. The Defence Department was under Mr. M'Nab’s direction, as Acting-Minis-ter, for nearly two years. He was at the head of it from the commencement of the Defence Council scheme. At the outset he was an enthusiastic supporter of the volunteer movement ’and against the idea of compulsory training, but his administrative experience satisfied him that the volunteer system could not he worked, and would have to he replaced by something else, if satisfactory results wore wanted. Mr. INPNab’s experience of defence matters goes back much further than his period as a Minister of the Crown. He has! been in- the volunteer force since 1886, and lias seen much service in drill-shed and field. He states that the volunteers of to-day are more efficient than ever they were. The volunteer has striven valiantly to do the best possible with his time, but the time at his disposal, during Easter, has been too brief. If he managed to give more time, under the present state of the law, it would be at the cost of handicapping himself in the struggle for existence against the less patriotic individuals who devoted all their time and energy to their own ends, and cheerfully left the burden of the rifle for other hands. Mr. .M‘Nab’s idea is that all should be treated alike. The price of patriotic service should n6t be at a loss of wages or a courting of unpopularity with an employer. He considers that the Defence Council hat accomplished more than the Premier claimed for jt at Invercargill, but it has chiefly served to show that New Zealand can never hope to he adequately safeguarded by a volunteer system.