NELSON-MARLBOROUGH MOUNTED RIFLES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21759, 16 April 1936, Page 9

NELSON-MARLBOROUGH MOUNTED RIFLES

TO TUB EDITOR PF THE PIIEBS. Sir, —My absence from the city on business has delayed me in replying to "R.S.M., Main Body." I can see mv outing on the "screen" has drawn fire, but I would advise your correspondent to find more effective ammunition if he wishes to pierce the defence of fact. I reiterate my former contention that no relationship existed between the two forces. I refer him to "Regulations governing the establishment of the Territorial Force Defence Act, 190 y, Section 1., Organisation Paragraph 2, Composition of Territorial Force." This section sets all doubt at rest on the question. The Expeditionary Force Act was special legislation embodied in the Defence Act, 1909, and the establishment was laid down. All we had- to do was "press the button," which we did five years after, in 1914. By proclamation we came into being and by the same means we ceaaed to exist in 1920, and our tradition went with it in the military sense. We may not be able to convince an imaginative mind, neither cp i we twist legislation governing the establishment of these forces when that legislation has a distinction as well as a difference. The New Zealand Gazette. 1909-1914. points all this out to us.

The 10th Mounted Regiment (Territorial) did not, as your correspondent states, actually form a squadron for active service. • The Defence Department for organisation and location purposes only (I had at that period more than a passing connexion with these matters) used the numbers of these territorial regiments and applied these numbers to the snuadrons in the making. There were 12 squadrons required. It so happened that many members of the 10th Regiment were, as individuals only, eligible for enrolment, as were members of other regiments, qualifying by age and previous experlenc3, which was the first preference for enrolment in the new force and a new attestation had to be made.

An anomaly exists in conferring battle honours to territorial regiments that were prevented by legislation eit'-ier as a whole or in part from engaging in the campaign, and that is all that is to it. Permanent staff officers and other ranks, by virtue of their calling, were posted for duty with the new forces, bui in any case their peace-time attestation specified foreign service. "R.S.M. Main Body" quotes South Africa, but representation by regulars in a composite regiment of regulars from the same regiments is a different matter. We were not the same organisation as th° territorial organisation. However, New Zealanders on the whole give little thought to musty dition. We can no longer live on the glories of the past, and I am sure the present generation, without this incentive, will be right there when the "whips are cracking" if they are required.—Yours, etc., EX-TROOPER. April 12. 1936.