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SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1933. Volume 4. Number 4.

Military Unit Wanted ?

Military Unit Wanted ?

I shall be pleased if you will allow me space in your columns to enquire as to the present practicability, from the students' side of a suggestion that there be established at the College some description of military unit. Otago University has a Medical Corps, and a past student, a graduate of this College, has suggested that Victoria likewise might wish to establish a unit in which specialised military training and the University atmosphere might combine. He added, however, that it would be necessary to have a definite proposal to make before negotiations with the Defence Department could he opened.

It is with some diffidence, and only after considerable hesitation, that I bring the suggestion forward, for I realise how many, and how pressing, are existing claims upon the time of members of the student body. Inasmuch, however, as the subject of the proposal may supply a want, even if only a half-felt want, among a sufficiently large number of students, I am taking the step of introducing the topic in your pages. I may add that my own view, arrived at after careful consideration, and in the absence of which this letter would not have been written, is that none need ever regret having undertaken a course of military training.

I shall be most happy to hear, either through your columns or per medium of the letter-rack, from College men who are already members of military units, and from any others who have a constructive interest in the matter proposed. It is not my desire to start a controversy on the issue Pacifism versus Militarism—an issue in which either extreme is injurious. My sole object is to discover to what extent feeling in the College is at present favourable to the general idea of a V.U.C. Volunteer Company

I am, etc.,

H. M. Sansum.