SIR - Brian Hunt's discourse on the subject of military discipline (Letters, June 23) seems to be outdated.

He appears to be still living in an era when school teachers made liberal use of the cane and terrified their charges into submission.

That all ended long ago as did the kind of discipline he attributes to the armed forces. By recruiting and encouraging willing volunteers, the services nowadays are capable of coping with their commitments without the encumbrance of reluctant and hostile conscripts.

In the past they have needed to supplement numbers, and young people have responded well to conscription as may well happen again.

There were no National Servicemen at Arnhem, in the Far East or on the High Seas in wartime. Those conscripts were able to perceive a purpose and responded adequately.

The term National Service came to be applied to a form of peacetime training that took people away from their chosen careers without showing adequate reason.

To re-introduce National Service merely to instill discipline would be little short of disastrous.

John Hinton, Worcester.