Universal Service Introduced

Although the South-African War stimulated public interest in Defence, there was still a tendency to neglect the Volunteers. The Volun­teers suffered from the dwindling numbers of the permanent staff, whose conditions of employment led them to leave the Army in increasing numbers. In 1906 the Government revealed a new aware­ness of the problems when the Defence Amend­ment Act was passed setting up a Defence Council. In harmony with the ideas already formulated by professional critics of our military affairs, the Council favoured more efficient volunteer forces and less attention to harbour defence schemes. In 1908 the whole situation was brought into the forefront of political discussion through the activity of the National League of Defence, an organisation which carried on vigorous propa­ganda, under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Bell, in favour of compulsory military service. James Alien, of the Reform Party, and Robert McNab, Minister of Lands, though opposed in politics, united in strenuous advocacy of universal service, proving that Defence was a national rather than a party issue. The average man was placed in the dilemma of disliking compulsion but desiring reform. The Defence Act, 1909, was the up­shot of the obvious need for reform and the growing insecurity of the world as a whole.

The Defence Act made military training universal for young men up to the age of twenty-one, a 1911 amendment raising this age to twenty-five. In 1910 Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener visited New Zealand and made recommendations that greatly increased the effectiveness of the Act. The permanent staff and the professional officers employed rose in numbers. Officers were at last appointed instead of being elected. The chief officers of the Headquarters establishment became the Dominion section of the Imperial General Staff which kept them informed of developments abroad and so effectively implemented the col­laboration of the military forces of the whole Empire. Cadets were sent to Duntroon Military College in Australia. Equipment was modernised, and — most important of all — the numbers of cadets and territorials in training were greatly in­creased, while the training itself was much improved. Though compulsory, it made very small inroads on the leisure of the youth of the country, and did not disturb industry.

Although universal training was in full working order in 1911, it had not been expected to give results until 1917. In April 1914 Sir Ian Hamilton visited New Zealand and made further recommendations for improvement, though he acknowledged that good work was being done. He advocated more field work and tighter discipline. New Zealand’s forces, he felt, should be kept on a war rather than a peace footing. But there was soon to be a vital testing of the troops New Zealand was training, and there can be no doubt that the new efficiency given to our Defence by the 1909 Act was a decisive factor in the part played in the 1914-18 War by the first New Zealand Expeditionary Force.