PERMANENT LOCAL DEFENCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 15, 2 June 1880, Page 4

PERMANENT LOCAL DEFENCE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, — Some correspondence has appeared in your columns suggesting the advisability of organising a more economical permanent defence force than the A.C. In the event of the Government seeing fit to reduce the A.C. Force, I think there is no doubt but an efficient defence force could be raised from the settlers at a comparatively nominal cost ; and such force would be quite adequate to any ordinary occasion that might arise for defence. It seems very absurd that Parliament should vote a sum as payment to volunteers which is only sufficient to mate volunteering possible in places where it can be of no earthly service. Some regret has been expressed that the two Hawera corps sent in their arms, and such regret has taken the form of censure on the volunteers. I think the blame ought to lie on the Government, and not on the volunteers. The Government must be perfectly aware — unless I overrate their intelligence — that volunteering could not coutinue to exist in Hawera under the present regulations, which are only adapted to large centres of population. The settlers in this frontier district are not made of sugar-candy, and if the occasion arose they would, under pre-

sent regulations, have to take their share as heretofore without either pay or organisation. Although I think that the chance of a native disturbance is very improbable under any circumstances, yet I feel sure that the organisation of the settlers, as a defence force, would be the cheapest and most certain way of making a disturbance impossible. It is reported that the Waihi redoubt is likely soon to be done away with, and head-quarters shifted to Opunake. As things are now, Opunake is certainly the proper place for head-quarters of a fiold force. On such an event, the A.C. will no longer be in a position to act as a defence to this district, and it is to be hoped the settlers will be put in such a position that there will be little or no likelihood of disaffected Maoris interfering with them. This could be done by giving a few days' pay for each day the defence force of settlers might be on service, and they could be called out often or seldom as those in authority might deem necessary ; thus the services of an efficient force could be had at a minimum cost in quiet times such as the present, and in the event of threatened disturbance the cost would only increase in proportion to the magnitude of the occasion. It cannot be expected that the settlers will again give their services gratis, and find their own commissariat as well, as they did last winter. Frontier settlers can well afford to give their services for defence at a much less cost than that at which it is possible to procure any other defence coips. P j I think it would be well for settlers to express their opinions freely on this subject, as the lime must come when the present A.C. force will be reduced to mere peace requirements, and though valuable now as a field force, would be too costly to keep up merely to produce a moral effect, which is all that would be required permanently. The settlement and defence scheme of the A.C. has evidently been drawn up by men who have a thorough knowledge of the requirements of the native difficulty on the Waimate. It would be a great pity if a fine body of settlers, such as the A.C. who have taken part in the scheme, should be ultimately driven out of the district by any penny-wise and pound-foolish policy. I hope the subject of permanent local defence will be thoroughly ventilated and discussed, as there is no reason why Government should not accept the services of settlers on some economical basis, — I am, <fee, Settleb.