The Evening Star FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1885.

Evening Star, Issue 6728, 9 October 1885, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1885.

Thk inspection parade of the Dunedin and country Volunteer companies on Wednesday afternoon demonstrated that a very considerable advance in efficiency has been made since 1880, when General (then Colonel) Scratchley reported generally on the defences of New Zealand. Many of the recommendations in his report have been since given effect to in the new regulations, with results more or less satisfactory. In some important respects, however, there remains room for improvement in the organisation of the Force ; and Sir G. Whitmore spoke to the point when he said that practically very little has been done by the Government and the law. His opinion evidently is that the New Zealand Volunteers should be organised and disciplined very much as they are in Great Britain, and that Parliament should deal much more liberally with the service than iji .dou.xidSi, v ••‘darpet knight,” but has fought Volunteers in the grim earnest of more than one sanguinary Maori war. The difficulty he experienced—a difficulty, by the way, which cost the Colony such blood and money—was the wane of discipline in the corps employed under him in actual service. Officers and men could be depended on to fight bravely, and spared themselves in no respect ; but of military discipline there was little or nothing, and the knowledge of drill, especially as to combined movements, was most defective. Worse than this, it was not unusual to discuss instead oi at once obeying orders, and more than one grave disaster accrued from officers acting independently of the commander-in-chief, if not in defiance of his orders. Sir George Whitmore, who bore much unmerited blame for casualties and failures entirely attributable to the character of the material he bad to deal with, expressed himself feelingly when on Wednesday he exhorted the Volunteers to realise the necessary virtues of good discipline and cheerful unquestioning obedience. As he pointedly put it, a red coat and a musket by no means make a soldier. “ The first duty of a “ soldier is obedience there can “be *no discipline where there is “no subordination. It is not intended “ that a soldier should criticise orders j “he is not a soldier if he does so. His “ business is to yield blind obedience “ to the command given, so as to enable “ the men to be worked as one “machine.” Sir George, in expressing himself well satisfied as to the general attendance at the parade, and especially as to the presence of so many country corps, animadverted, very properly, on the selfish, unpatriotic conduct of those employers of labor Who had refused to allow their hands a half-holiday for the purj pose, and so spoiled the muster of several jQity corps. It might surely be reasonably .expected that every citizen would do - so much for the effectiveness of the force and the credit of the provincial district as to further the attendance of every, Volunteer on the one day in the year of the statutory inspection parade. It would seem to require U) he understood that Volunteer corps tac not intended to be mere rifie clubs. The j impression therefore in some quarters ' prevailing that these corps, if left much to their own (levices, would afford valuable reserves from which to draw the necessary forces for defence, and that their organisation into fighting bodies can be safely left to the time when theeiuergency may arise, is entirely a delusion. “To oppose with success,” says General Scratch ley, “the sudden “ attacks th?,t an enemy would pro“bably make on t&e shores of New “ Zealand, the armed foyces of the ‘‘ Colony should be ready on tl;o spot, “ .commanded and administered Jnj ‘‘pews- and. war on one and the “same system.” I’ 1 ” 8 is t,ie ol, J ecfc aimed at in the present Volunteer Act and Regulations, and the Government have shown themselves to be in earnest by the arrangements recently effected in regard to organisation and command. They would appear, however,

to have faltered so far in what they must have realised as their duty in not asking Parliament for a more liberal vote for the Volunteers, with a view to increased effectiveness and more substantial recognition of services to the Colony. Much has been done of late years, we admit; but it is nevertheless somewhat of a reproach to New Zealand that the officer commanding the local forces—himself, by-the-way, by no means an undistinguished member of the Legislature—should bo justified in declaring on parade : “ Volunteers, —You have “ not had a great deal done for you “either by the Government or the “law. We must not look for that “ assistance to make us perfect, “ because we well know we shall not “ get it. If it were not for the spirit “which moves the men to do their “ duty to the country, all that the law “ does, or that the Government have “ yet done, would be very little indeed “ towards the object aimed at.”