The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1899. BAYONET AND BAND.

Feilding Star, Volume XXI, Issue 128, 29 November 1899, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1899. BAYONET AND BAND.

Taking them as a whole the British -re the most conservative people in the world. The way in -which they (viog to the ancient modes of fighting, 'heir prejudices and their traditions, is marvellous when the great changes which have been made during the present century are taken into consideration. While the other nations of Europe have either entirely abandoned the use of the bayonet as an offensive weapon or look on it with disfavor, the British have clung to it with affectionate confidence in its powers of convincing an enemy of the error of his ways. That confidence hss been fully justified in several of the recent engagements in South Africa, where it; has not only been effectively applied by tbe soldiers of tbe line, but by the mounted infantry, who have been educated to use it as a lance fixed to their rifles. The natural instinct of the British soldier inclines him to get as close as possible to an antagonist, for he feels more confi dent of the possible result when he can look his foe in the face. The War Office has frequently been urged to abandon the bayonet as a useless encumbrance, because, with the magazine rifles, troops would seldom or never approach close enough to use it, but the War Office authorities appear to have understood the true qualities of the men under their control when they withstood the pressure from without of quidnuncs "whose ideas of fighting were more theoretical than practical. As a contemporary puts it, practically every British success in South Africa has been finally won at the point of . the bayonet. No finer charge is recorded in history than that at Belmont,. where the Boers were driven from position after position which, the prisoners iaken declare, were believed to be impregnable. Grimly determined, not even waiting to fire a shot, up the heights they swarmed, and when they once got the cold steel to work all was over. And the band played. It requires nerve for men with brass instruments to keep time and tune with the ballets flying round— greater pluck than even a bayonet charge in a moment of excitement demands. The action at Belmont, though small in its way, wiU, we venture to say, impress not only the Boers but the Great Powers of Europe with increased respect for British pluck, endurance, and coolness.