INDIAN AND COLONIAL TROOPS

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4291, 26 February 1901, Page 5

INDIAN AND COLONIAL TROOPS

THE MEN WHO FIGHT BEST i FOR THE EMPIRE. 1 i CAPTAIN CAMPBELL’S EULO- < GIUM. ' i In returning thanks at New Ply- 1 month, after being presented with a 1 kiwi mat, Captain Campbell, of-the 18th 1 Bengal Lancers, made some interesting ( remarks on the value of Indian and co- ! lonial troops. In the course of his f speech he said; —For our regiments in 1 India we prefer the men not to- be able 1 to talk English; if they do it is plain 1 to us that they have been to school, « and not learned to fight. We 'want 1 them to fight for the Empire, and we | will not* take the educated man. We 1 have an old man, Misrikhan, Eisaldar- I Major, and! if he is asked, “Can you- 3 speak English?” he says “No, I can’t * speak English; I fight for the Empire.” 1 Our men think that England is rather a small place, and that there are only two places in the world—England and India. They have found out now what a large place the British Empire is. In travelling through the different States of Australia they saw troops in every centre, and here, at every - ittle way- ( side station, they find soldiers of the i King. Possibly you may think that we ; under-rate your troops because they j have not the precision of arms that , our , troops have. I think all this smartness : in drill is going out now. We don’t f want that smartness anti machine-like j drill. .All the drill-books at present in 3 use ought to be burned. What we want is called ■ “ field cunning.” ■ We ■: know that the New Zealand troops and - all their fellow-colonials have that “field cunning” born in them. Smart- ] ness goes for nothing on active ser- ■ vice. In support of the remarks* which I have just made, I have only recently read a letter from one , of our very smartest soldiers in South Africa. He was, when I first knew him, adjutant of the smartest British cavalry Tegi- '< ment which I have ever seen. The . smartness of that regiment was entirely the result of his own soldierly qualities j and extreme hard work on his part. In the letter Which I refer to he said'that he felt inclined! to weep for the .many j useless years' of his life that he Had spent in imparting smartness to the ( British cavalry soldier. - • He remarked j that what one wanted in a cavalry sol- ( dier was, 1 first, good horsemanship, i which we have heard all over the world , you New Zealanders possess; and,, see- ■> ondly, the intelligence of being able to . find: their way in any country. The remainder that the soldier requires in 1 the way of zeal, pluck and discipline are sure to follow these first two traits. As a further example of what I have just been saying, I would mention that one of the best men of my regiment—a noncommissioned officer, who was in charge of the advanced party of an ordinary advanced guard—led part of the regiment on its way back to barracks into r an impassable ravine. The officer whto j was commanding this portion of the ( regiment -said to the man: “When you 1 go out coursing with me, you are a 1 very clever man; but when’you put on a } uniform coat you lose your cunning.” The non-commissioned officer said he was \ very sorry, but the drill book laid down ( fthat he was to keep on an occasion of this sorb at a regulation distance from ] the head of the-fcdlhmii,! atid in keeping 1 his place he could not avoid leading that column into that impassable ravine. Some thirty years ago General Sir Georg© Chesney prophesied that we ’ should trust the native-soldiery so completely that eventually, instead of having ten or a, dozen British officers with each native regiment, we should have inot more. than a- commandant and an adjutant. This would throw more responsibility on the native officers, and tho more responsibility that is thrown on them the better work they would do. ITliis has been exemplified in the fact that every day we are raising more and more 1 , native States troops. 1 The leaders of Hie 1 native States have • their -own troops, and go in man d theta, and all that w© do is to- supply one inspecting officer to go round each group of four or. five, native : States. When-you find native officers detached from-their -regiments in command of a troop or company, the fact of their having that responsibility thrown on them is the best training that they possibly can have, and these native officers can be thoroughly relied upon. They know their duties and know how to carry them out. The old idea was that the British Army should be armed with the newest class of weapon, and the native army with an obsolete class, so that the former should always have the advantage of ; the uative'-army if It over , came to any. occurrence such. as 1357coming on again. Now; however, we have come to the idea that this change of arm is all nonsense. Arrangements i have already been made to arm the I whole native army with the latest firc- ' arms. In concluding his remarks, Cap- , (tain Campbell said;—Thpre was R‘qtses7j ■ ition raised as ’to - whether the men of j t his contingent could possibly exist away . ■ from tho ship for two days. I had asked]

many of the native officers' hnd’imen whether they could exist for two days away from the shi}}. Their- answer -to -me was that if they didn’t get one single thing to eat for three days away from the ship they would come to me on the fourth day, and they would tell me that they were hungry and thirsty. As. it turned out, they had fed not only in the most hospitable manner, f but with most lavish disregard of economy in food and drink;