THE BALMORAL CAMP.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12480, 17 April 1906, Page 6

THE BALMORAL CAMP.

Apart from tho wholly u:i necessary rigour of the transport arrangements, to which we referred yesterday, tho Balmoral oamp appears to have been, thoroughly successful. The operations throughout were essentially practical, in which respect they differed widely from these at some past Easter camps that could bo mentioned. Tlie feature of tho work that distinguished this year's camps from all their was the us? by tho troops, for the first time on such an occa.-ion, of ball cartridge and live shrll. Blank cart ridge. as is well kiravn, seems to entcii! no responsibility u_x>:i the men usiiis it. They simply Maze- away ir.i.tr.l they have fired off tJieir allotted number of rounds. It is practically impossible to get them to aim carefully before firing, and extremely difficult to exercise the proper fire dir-cipiine. The experiment, of using ball ammunition war; regarded by some as rather dangerous, but exporbnee has shown that the non-comniist-ioned officers arc a Wo to exercise admirable control over the men. and mi 'the "battTo firing at Balmoral the volu_iccis showed a degree of steadiness that would have done credit to regular*. There is, of course, a great difference between firing at a mark and at another man who can fire back, and possibly the shooting might not have been so good as it was if the bullets had been whistling round the heads of those in the firing line. But, so far as it went, the practice was most useful, and the results, on the whole, very gratifying. The work of the mounted troops lias been declared

to be probably the best of its kind ever done in the colony. Tlie country they had to cover wa6 of a difficult nature, and the positions taken up resembled in many instances those round which well-known engagements were fought in the South African war, while officers who had been through that earripaign asserted that the way in which the men worked was as good as they had seen anywhere. It is a pity that at a camp at which such practical work was done, the attendance of volunteeis should have left so much to be desired. Very few corps had more than half their strength piesent, and most of them had much less. At the fame time, as we said yesterday, the authorities went out of their way at the very first to disgust the men with volunteering, and certainly no better muster oan be expected next year unless there is some guarantee of better treatment. Tha transport arrangements at the camp were also quite inadequate, and emphasised once moro tho necessity of establishing a properly-equipped Transport Corps, so often urged by General BabLngton.