THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1901.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11787, 17 October 1901, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1901.

During the past decade the colony has more than trebled its Defence Department expenditures, the sum voted yesterday for those purposes totalling £287,434, from which a very considerable deduction must of course be made for the special expenses of the past exceptional year. We do not draw attention to this large sum in any cavilling spirit. On the contrary we most emphatically assert that it is the duty of the colony to flinch from no expenditure which has for its object the securing of our homes against foreign invasion and which it is within our power to make. The support given in the House to every item of Defence expenditure submitted by the Premier shows that this natural and instinctive feeling is almost universally felt. But the very fact that Parliament is prepared to vote and the country to cordially endorse any necessary Defence items, however large, gives us the right to expect of the Government the closest and most intelligent attention to this most necessary depart ment of our national life. While we gladly recognise that our Defence

expenses have so largely increase:l mainly because our Defence caoa bilities have been largely increased —this apart from the special expenditures of the year — think it can not be questioned that we do not get for our money nil we ought to get, and that our Defence Forces a-e not enabled to become as effective as they might easily be. It is re grettable that when the country spends such large sums, and is ready to spend more if necessary, and when so many thousands of the flower of our young men so patriotically give a great deal of time ant! trouble, our Defence system should be seriously handicapped by the very antiquated methods for which we all unite in blaming the Imperial authorities. It is apparently very much easier to explain to one another the faults of the Imperial Army system than to apply common sense and businesslike methods io our small permanent force and in the magnificent raw material which that permanent force ought to leaven.

It is for instance very essential that our officers and experts should be kept in close touch with the con. tinually changing methods of the military sciences. The backbone of our Defence is assuredly the men who are mustered in our volunteer corps and those who have passed through the ranks. But the brains of our Defence must inevitably remain with the experts, unless, as we remarked recently, we intend to allow any strong invader to occupy our country while we fall back upon the guerilla tactics of the Boer. This absolute essential to an effective Defence system was very properly and very strongly pointed out by Colonel Pole-Penton in his valedictory report. It is a popular thing to profess great reliance upon the citizen soldier and great hatred of anything approaching a " standing army." If we confine our ideas of " standing army" to corps and regiments maintained in time of peace on a war footing it may reasonably be contended that there is no need for such an institution in a colony such as ours. But to make our citizen-soldiers effective they must have experts to train, to instruct and to direct them, while this necessity for experts is infinitely increased when we come to the handling of great guns, the directing of submarine mining and the intricate details of engineering. By all means let us give our native talent full opportunity when we find it, but talent and up-to-date talent we need and should have, whether it is colonial or British-born. There should be some well-considered system by which every expert member of the permanent force—and they should each and every one be expert in their particular grade—should bfe afforded opportunity and imperatively required to keep well to the fore in the ever-increasing science of war. For it is to fight, and fight to the very best advantage should the emergency ever arise, that our young men volunteer and our Parliament yearly votes large sums with very little question.

It is very satisfactory to know that the Defence Department intends to conduct the meetings hitherto arranged by the Rifle Association. None will be better pleased than our veteran riflemen themselves. Now that the State takes the matter in hand, it should be made the keystone of a shooting system in which the marksmanship required in the field should be sedulously fostered. Fixed distance shooting is very good, but shooting at unknown distances is better, while moving targets at unknown distances are best of all. In fact, all along the line, in things great as in things small, we ought to make our New Zealand Defence Forces a thoroughly workmanlike body. We can only do so by aiming always at effectiveness and thinking less and less of meaningless evolutions and wearisome parades. Do we do this 1 i We have some artillery, but where are our modern field guns ? We have no means of training at sea our naval volunteers. And as for equipments our Defence Forces are so lamentably deficient that hardly a corps or a company could take the field without commandeering the barest necessities of active service. This is not what the country expects or what it wishes to pay for. Certainly, it is not reasonable that we should be paying several hundred thousand pounds yearly and be perfectly willing to pay as much more if necessary and yet not be in a condition to make any daring invader speedily regret his attack upon us. As we recently pointed out, we cannot even supply arms to every man who can use them, and as for reserve ammunition we can hardly venture to speak of it.