THE ARMED CONSTABULARY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 544, 16 February 1870, Page 3

THE ARMED CONSTABULARY.

{From the Wellington Independent, Feb. 10.) It seems to have become the fashion to pour out upon Mr Branigan's head the vial of wrath which the " outs " at some time or other always vent upon the " ins." It is a curious fact, too, that the attacks upon the Commissioner have increased in frequency and violence during the last few days — since, in fact, the ex-Commander of the Forces has shown himself in Wellington. We can hardly suppose that a gentleman who has so often and so bitterly complained of the injury done to the public service by the press, by means of an undeserved and ignorant censure of the military operations of the Government, should have lent his ready pen to create difficulties in the way of his successor which he so greatly deplored for himself ; but still the coincidence is remarkable. And it is the more so, as the recent articles in our evening contemporary betray an intimate knowledge of the military movements under Colonel Whitmore, and a minute acquaintance with the different scenes of military operations. We are glad to see that Mr Branigau has found an advocate in the Lyttelton Times. It is not well only to hear one Bide of the question. Had Mr Branigan followed the example of his predecessor, he would have replied for himself, but Mr Branigan is probably too well occupied otherwise, and too much imbued with an absurd old idea that it is better to defend himself by a silent appeal to his acts, than by rushing into print with an elaborate statement of his motives and intentions in carrying out the work with which he has been entrusted by the present Ministry. On Mr Branigan's personal history we have no need to dwell. It is to our mind a matter of supreme indifference whether the Lyttelton Times is right in saying that he was sent for by the Victorian Government to organise a police force, or whether it is wrong. It is quite sufficient recommendation to us that he proved himself most successful in the performance of the difficult task which was entrusted to him at Otago, a task which he has been appointed to perform on a larger scale for the colony. It is made a cause of complaint against the present Government that no result is apparent from their efforts to reorganise the force during tho seven months which they have held office, and that the force which Mr Branigan is attempting to raise is not qualified for the work which it has to perform. It is, to our mind, one of the great recommendations of the action of the present Ministry, that they are effecting the change so quietly and gradually as to make no outward show. Even the seven months during which the present Ministry has been in office, would be a miserably short time in which to re-organise a military force, which all the time is obliged to ba held in readiness to meet the enemy, and it is not more than five months since Mr Branigan undertook the duties of his present position. It seems to be entirely forgotten by those who affect to despise the new force because it is to be remodelled on the basis of the Irish Constabulary, that we do not look forward to a chronic state of warfare, and that we do not anticipate the necessity of keeping up a strictly military force for a long series of years. Any purely military force which we are obliged to maintain, should be so enrolled that when its services as a fighting body shall be no longer required it may be disbanded or made self - supporting, by locating the men on land as military settlers. But the cardinal point of the policy of the present Ministry has been the organisation and maintenance of a small thoroughly trained body of men, to wjiich the preservation of the peace of the colony is to ba entrusted, after Te Kooti and Tito Kowaru had been reduced to submission, and which should besufficiently strong to crush any fresh out-

break before it should become formidable. The colony cannot afford to maintain a purely military force, aud it has been universally acknowledged by all parties in the Assembly that the Irish Constabulary is the best model for the permanent force of New Zealand. In reconstructing the force on this new model, the Government and Mr Branigan have especially kept in view what Colonel Whitmore himself affirms is one great clement of the Irish Constabulary, viz — " their high personal character, which is the result of selection in a very wide fiel'l, and their having everything to lose by dismissal, which is their chief punishment." No doubt it ia the strictness with which Mr Branigan adheres to this principle laid down in the organization of the new force that raises him so many enemies among the demilitarised officers and men. Those who had any real acquaintance witli the personnel of those levies which from time to time were raised by the late Government, cannot disguise from themselves the fact that a very large number both of officers and men were entirely unfitted for their duties in consequence of the intemperate habits they had contracted, and very many others were physically incompetent to serve. During Colonel Whitmore's reign, a system of wholesale weeding went on, and was going on at the time he resigned the command ; and that weeding is still continued. It is entirely contrary to fact to suppose that men of good character and experience in New Zealand bush fighting are being dismissed wholesale, simply because they do not come up to a six-foot standard. The first detachment of the new force, raised entirely under Mr Branigan's direction, and which started a few weeks ago from Wellington, waa, as far aB height and physical development were concerned, as irregular a force as could well have been collected ; and however much Mr Branigan might wish to parade a force equal in inches to the Otago Police, he certainly does not reject a good man because he happens to be small. The fact is, that so far from the good men left in the force by Colonel Whitmore being rejected by the Commissioner, every inducement which increased pay, and permanent engagement afford, is offered to secure their services ; and, until it can be shown that habits of intoxication are a necessary qualification in a soldier, we shall still believe thai: the careful selection of sober men of good character for the permanent constabulary force of the colony is more likely to produce an efficient bo ly of men, and well able to nape with the Maori in the bush, than the system of enlistment carried out by their predecessors. As yet, the garrisons holding the posts at Taupo have not; been called into action, but we venture to prophesy that when they are brought before the enemy they will render as good service as the *• military " forces which served under Col. Whitmore. It is still fresh in the recollection of the inhabitants of the town of Wanganui and the surrounding country, that the march of but a small body of those men was marked by the loss of two of their number before they had got a mile from Wanganui, simply from the effects of drink, and that their movement was made memorable by a series of drunken orgies and riots at every publichouse by the way. A more severe criticism on the discipline and organisation of the forces it would be hard to find, and if Commissioner Branigan does nothing more than prevent the possible recurrence of such scenes as those, he will raise the new force to a higher standard than it was ever likely to attain under the old regime.