THE VOLUNTEER SYSTEM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8543, 25 March 1908, Page 3

THE VOLUNTEER SYSTEM.

Referring to the present volunteer system, while speaking to a "Standard" representative, an Auckland officer on a visit to Palmerston expressed his conviction that upon the forthcoming Easter manoeuvres, ancl their success or failure, depended largely the future of the present system of volunteering. If the men did not turn out freely, and snow that they meant to "make things go," there would probably bo a radical, perhaps revolutionary, change. When told that great interest was being shown locally in tho proposal to make the Easter manoeuvres as much like actual warfare as possible, and that the Palmerston volunteers were going to turn out in force, he said lie was sorry the reverse was the case in Auckland city. There it was found most, difficult to get men to take to the idea, and the largest number likely to go from any ono corps was _ only about 50 per cent., and in the majority of cases the percentage would be much lower. Asked if the distance the men would have to travel had not something to do with this, he was of opinion that the distance was quite a secondary consideration with them. " The trouble is," he said, "that interest in volunteering, especially amongst the infantry, seems dead in Auckland, and it is the hardest work imaginable to get men to take an active part in anything, or even to roll up regularly to parades." It is simply heart-breaking to an enthusiast trying to inspire fire into men who won't bother their heads about matters at nil," said the speaker. He pointed to the fact that each company was now required to furnish returns regularly to the Defence Council a? being proof that, th© Council was taking this means of closely watching the progress of the various volunteer corps with a view to inaugurating a different system if they did not come up to the required standard.