AUCKLAND'S DEFFENCES.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 948, 27 February 1897, Page 2

AUCKLAND'S DEFFENCES.

Colonel Pole-Penton'B Oplkion.

I . It is interesting to learn that Colonel Pole-Penton, the new Commandant of the Forces, considers Auckland should be the first line of New Zealand defence. This is where he differs from Colonel Fox, the late and not very much lamented Commandant. Colonel Fox considered the defence of Auckland was a very an* important matter. Wellington and the West Coast coal ports were to his mind ■the points that should be carefully and strongly guarded. He would have left Auckland with her thriving city, her magnificent dock, and her excellent coal resources largely at the mercy of any -invader.

Not so Colonel Penton, however. He has advised the Government that Auckland is the vital point of the colony, and, as a consequence of his recommendation, the costly guns which have been rotting away on Monnt Victoria nnder the Fox regime, are immediately to be mounted, and the garrison of the forts is to be augmented by a considerable draft of men from the South.

All this goes to show that the new Commandant is a man of discernment and judgment, and that the Honorable the Defence Minister is anxious to inaugurate and perfect a better system of defence administration than has prevailed in the. past. There are reasons to believe that the advent of Colonel Penton means a new era of prosperity for volunteering, with which the new Commandant is thoroughly in sympathy, and which may at least be placed upon a satisfactory footing. Here, again, we are assured of the Minister of Defence's sympathies.