The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1901. THE SEVENTH CONTINGENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 46, 23 February 1901, Page 4

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1901. THE SEVENTH CONTINGENT.

For tlio cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong Unit needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the jcod that we can do.

The despatch with which arrangements are being made for sending' our Seventh Contingent to South Africa speaks for the organisation in military circles here us well as for the striking1 spirit of preparedness among the youth of the colony. A year ago, ihe enrolment ami preparation of a contingent was a business involving no end of trouble. We were entirely new to it. The thing had never been done before, and we lacked the experience and the machinery necessary for it. But a few short months have wrought wonders. One. after another, the colony has sent forth its contingents until now the matter has almost come to be one of mere routine. With a rapidity that is truly astonishing, when one. considers it, capable bodies of fighting men. with their horses and all their necessary equipments, are in readiness and on their way to the scene of hostilities. One day comes the call for volunteers. The next, twice, thrice or four times as many men as arc required are on the spot. A few weeks in camp under the drill sergeant, and the enthusiastic band has left us; and when we next bear of tliexri they are vieiiiij with veteran soldiers in deeds of daring and winning the highest encomiums from their comrades and commanders. Here is evidence of a capacity we had never dreamt of in a community like this. It is striking enough that there should be such a universal alacrity to respond to the call for volunteers, and that that alacrity should increase rather than diminish with the despatch of every contingent; but much more striking is it that among a generation absolutely without any experience of war, and so far removed from those influences which directly inspire a military ardour, there should be such a. natural capacity for

fighting,

In the fact- of so absolute an assurance, who shall doubt the ability of this little country to repel whatever forces invasion may bring against it? Dr. Conan Doyle has expressed the opinion that no foreign army could ever conquer Great Britain even if it secured a landing there. Apart from the drilled forces which would be ready to withstand the intruder, every civilian who could lie behind a hedge and pull a. trigger would present a serious obstacle to the foe. What the British shopkeeper could effect in this direction the colonial, used to an outdoor life and familiar with every hill and valley of the country, could do ten times better. For such a warfare as we here an. this Now Zealand soil may be called on to wage we have in the people of the colony as effective a means of defence as any array of redcoats that the Mother Country could send us. The Boer war has proved this, but-prior to the Boer war, although we trusted it might be so, we had no such definite assurance as we now possess. In these days we did not even conceive that there was in the outwardly apathetic colonial a spirit that would rise so magnificently to the occasion as has been the case. We deplored the lack of interest in the volunteer movement, and looked anxiously for some means to stimulate our young men to the same activity in warlike exercise which they show in cricket and football. Whdever dreamt of witnessing such a scene as that in the Drill-shed on Thursday night, when the call made just the other day for sixty volunteers was responded to by something like five times that number? And this enthusiasm, too, comes at a time when whatever glamour invested the war in the eyes of the men of the earlier contingents, has pretty well disappeared. The men who volunteer now know right well the sort of thing they must be prepared to face in South Africa. Correspondents in the field have thrown no roseate hues over the stern realities of the campaign, and the men who are going to the war have had many opportunities of hearing from the lips of those who have just returned what they have to expect. Yet" the frequent vision of hardships, privations, wounds and probable death has not deterred a single soul, to judge by such evidences as the Drillshed furnished.

A telegram from Wellington gives the position with regard to the troops sent by New Zealand to South Africa. Including the Sixth Contingent, 2283 men and 89 officers have left these shores for the war. Of the number 69 men and 4 officers have been killed, 101 men and 3 officers discharged, 1 officer resigned, 2 officers and 11 men transferred, 2 men dismissed, and 11 officers and 223 men are on leave in New Zealand. At the present time there are, .including the men going and returning, 68 officers and 1887 men absent on account of the war. It is principally to bring the New Zealand force up to something like its original strength that this Seventh Contingent is being despatched. As far as one can judge of the war from this distance, it does not seem that the colony need at this moment do more. The Boer power in the field is evidently on the wane, Lord Kitchener having , already brought his army up to such a state of mobility as to make it possible to cope with the evasi c tactics of the enemy; and the reinforcements of

mounted troops which he is receiving should enable him to.determine the struggle speedily. OtUier news indicates that the end is not far off. Jhe 1-ioer rumour that Kruger is returning" to arrange for the cessation ot hostilities, even if it is only a rumour, shows unmistakably how the wind blows. The Boers are tired of the war. It may happen, therefore, that, the Seventh Contingent never has occasion to fire a shot. On the other hand, should the position of affairs in Africa turn out contrary to our expectations, and there be need for more New Zealanders, we know that it will only be too easy to fill the order.