THE VOLUNTEER REGULATIONS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8008, 12 February 1887, Page 3

THE VOLUNTEER REGULATIONS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SEW ZEALAND TIMES. Silt, —After perusing the new Tbliintecra .Regulations, as -published last month, I should like, with your permission, to call attention to certain facts.' Practical men had been looking forward to the promulgation of these regulations to learn what the relative rank of a ‘Vice-Commodore would be, and what style of uniform he would be required to wear, but as to those points the regulations are silent,’ much to our: disappointment. I should like to know why the correspondence of the Kaval Artillery Batteries i 3 no t conducted on the same footing as that of the artillery batteries ?: As regards the medical staff, I consider it a mistake to confers > high a rank as that of surgeon-gereral on,- the: principal medical officer. Ha should not hold higher rank than hrigr.de surgeon. For : the information of,; the uninitiated I would mention that a surgeongeneral has the relative rank of majorgeneral- •In paragraph 99, I aeo that Candidates for ‘the position of )

adjutant in any battalion may be either lieutenants or captains, for majors the ciptaina and adjutant only aie eligible, for lieutenant-colonel, the majors and adjutant only. Kow in tlid event of an adjutant of a battalion bung of the rank of lieutenant (u.d he might bo thejunior of that, rank), and a vacancy occurring for lieutenant-colonel,- it Would be quite possible, though perhaps not probable, to see a lieutenant and adjutant jwrtip & one stride £o the lieutenant-colonelcy of a battalion. This, in my humble opinion,would be unfair £6 the captains. In reference tod)3cipl?ne, there appears to be no provision to prevent officers Oom'manding districts from annoying thbßO under them, either from personal or other motives. Take, for instance, a case that occurred in the South Island a few years back. An officer commanding a corps reported a man for insubordination. The ' Officer Commanding the District, assuming something else, wrote a long censure to the captain, and had a copy of it forwarded to the secretary of the corps, by . whom,’l understand,’it ws* read at a meeting of the company. The same Commanding the District perniitted a person dressed in the uniform of a commissioned officer to appear on parade and command a corps though he held no commission—in fact had been refused one by the Defence Office in consequence of his conduct while an officer in a corps which had been disbanded for mutinous conduct. I see nothing in the new Regulations to provide against a repetition of such conduct, —lam, <&c., . A.D.S.P.M.