A FUNNY SIGHT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3981, 11 July 1913, Page 5

A FUNNY SIGHT.

PROFESSOR MILLS DRAWING A RICKSHAW.

UNITY CONCRESS AND DEFENCE JAPANESE PERIL DISCUSSED. [PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM] WELLINGTON, July 10. At the Unity Congress to-day, on the clause referring to military training, Professor W. T. Mills said that the present system of) defence was totally inadequate. All that had been done under the Act was to persecute the sons of active representatives of the working classes movement. The scheme for defending the country was absolutely inadequate. What was wanted was a democratic organisation free from class distinctions, officers to be elected by the men. He considered that when men were taken from their ordinary occupation to render military service they should be adequately paid. The German bogey and the Japanese scarecrow had been raised. but the first enemy they had to fight was exploiting the enemy within our own shores.

Mr Fagan (Reefton) did not believe in compulsory training. He did not believe in the oath, but he believed that if this country was worth reforming it was worth fighting for. If they had been in Northern Australia like he had they would be convinced that there was a danger of Japanese invasion. He said that if the Japanese did conquer this country it would be funny to see Professor Mills in the shafts of a rickshaw.

Mr J. M. Campbell moved as an amendment “That paragraph 12 of the fighting platform be deleted and the following substituted :

That compulsory military training is essential to the successful defence of the country, but that the existing Defence Act should be amended so as not to permit State interference with parents in the discharge of their moral duties to their chidlren.”

He said it was unquestionably the right of the parent to see what hours and what company their boys should observe. When moral and military training came in conflict the moral training should be supreme. He had listened to wild and unreasonable diatribes at street corners, but they must be convinced that ifi the country was worth having it was worth defending. If the present Act contained objectionable provisions that was no reason why the whole of the Act should be swept out of existence. Air Kelly seconded the amendment. Mr Nat Shorter (Auckland) said he was in the House last night, and he heard a plain statement that New Zealand would be prepared to send 10 000 soldiers abroad if required. Mr. Campbell’s amendment was lost.