  Recently it has been argued that autoparallels should be the correct
description of free particle motion in spaces with torsion, and that such
trajectories can be derived from variational principles if these are suitably
adapted. The purpose of this letter is to call attention to the problems that
such attempts raise, namely the requirement of a more elaborate structure in
order to formulate the variational principle and the lack of a Hamiltonian
description for the autoparallel motion. Here is also raised the problem of how
to generalize this proposed new principle to quantum mechanics and to field
theory. Since all applications known of such a principle are equally well
described in terms of geodesics in non-holonomic frames we conclude that there
is no reason to modify the conventional variational principle that leads to
geodesics.
