NIGHT FIRING.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 412, 22 January 1909, Page 5

NIGHT FIRING.

■ PRACTICE CANCELLED." Ml-N KEENLY DISAPPOINTED. ~ STATEMENT"' BY COLONEL ROBIN. ■ • To the garrison gunners who went into camp at Mahanga Bay during tho tnobilisa- ' .' tibn operations of last Easter, tho most at- ' ' tractive, and by far the most valuable, lesson of the manoeuvres wae the night-firing practice at tho liig suns. For the first time in the history of peac'o operations in Now Zealand, battle praoticWith livo shell was carried, out,at night, by eceroh-light.. This innovation was, hugely iir tho nature of an exptrimont, and carried with it a serious responsibility—a responsibility which was ' taken over by the Ohief of tho General Staiji (Colonel A. \V. Robin). There was tho dan- ' ger and possible inconvenience- to shipping , and smaller craft, and the most elaborate -' precautions were taken to safeguard tho pub- ■ lie. As everybody knows, the experiment was entirely suceessful,. and tho results were officially staled to have amply' justified it. From tho very fact that a harbour is more liablo to invasion by night than by day, battle practice at night Bhould be,- cvon to. lay minds, part of the syllabus of instruo- ' tion at the forts .which guard it. Tho con- . ditipns which obtain at night aro vaetly dif- ' ferc'nt from those ~which obtain during the day. ' ' It was with feelings of- keen disapnoint- " • meht, therefore,'that the Wellington Navale, who were to hnv6>oarried out niyht-firing by Boareh-light "at .tho forts last evening, re- - coived the netfs that tho practice had been ' cancelled, owing, it was understood, to the attitude, of tho Council of Defence, whioh had .'refused permission for tho practice to bo carried out: A representative of, The Dominion inter- , viewed Colonel Robin 'yesterday afternoon with referoneo to tho matter, and explained that there was Borne soreness over the cancellation of ,tho night-firing practice at the forts. Tho men wore very much disappointed.. / , . . ' "1 should think thoy would bo," oomme.ited tho Colonel, who wont on to say that the 'practice had unavoidably been abandoned "• ,in conscqupneo of a leport from/Major J. E. Hume, R.N.Z.A. (umpire for the classfiring placed on tho syllabus of instruction for the piactico so unsafe that ho declined to accent the.responsibility. ."The practice,would have teen carried out . had Libut','Colon'«l' Hend been in Wellington," continued Colonel' Robin, "but as he wae'-not here, and the'report ,was received at subh short notice, there. was nothing for it but to abandon the practice. . The matter will.be considered by .the Council of Defence, and," he added, I hope to see nightfiring placed on tho syllabus of instruction for