MILITIA AND VOLUNTEERS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3244, 6 July 1871, Page 2

MILITIA AND VOLUNTEERS.

TO THE EDITOR 01' THE INDEPENDENT. Sir — You may bring a horse to tho water, but you can't make him drink. The Governmout may bring an elderly settler out on tho parade ground, but they can't make him drill. Tho elderly settler sees no necessity for his acquiring military manoeuvres, and protests against his boing forced to come, by persistently placing his riflo on tho wrong shoulder, and invariably stopping off with the wrong foot. This is unsatisfactory, not only to the elderly settlor, who feels that % ho is out of placo on a parade ground, but to the staff whoso duty it is to teach him to drill properly, and more than all to the taxpayer, who has to pay tho expense of this useless sham. Tho compulsory parading of personß unfitted by ago and inclination for acquiring drill is not the only weak point in the existing defence system'} it falls short generally in what should be its leading characters in economy and efficiency. Elderly settlers, who receive each Is 6d per drill, and of course are expensivein other respects for which expenditure it is difficult to conceive any equivalent advantage to the public. With respeot to tho volunteer service, that portion of the expenditure which ia incurred in providing uniforms, rifles, targets, and ammunition and prize firing is .necessary : but tho capitation of fifty shillings per annum for uniforms which do not cost on an average Iv.-on'.y-five shilling por annum, is superfluous.

As to efficiency, the lees said on this, characteristic in the militia the better. ' In the volunteers arany corps have deteriorated, and very few of them can be really called efficient. The steps the Government are now taking to simplify the drill manual •will, in a great measure, remedy the present unsatisfactory state of volunteer proficiency. In settled districts it is useless trying to make soldiers of any but young and mkMleaged men. Moat of theße the Government catch with their volunteer net, for the few who slip through the militia net is spread, but the latter now catch too many fish that are of no value when caught. It would be better if the Government made their volunteer net catch all they wanted, or adjust the militia neb so that undesirable fish could escape its meshes; Why, too, should the Government pay the militia Is 6d per drill : this does nofc remunerate a man for the loss of half & day. If paid at all, he Bhould be paid in full ; but if every one in the colony is required to render certain services, it is as cheap for men to give their services as it is for them to pay a tax to the G-overntnent toenable it to return the money again to them, less official charges. Spending money freely on militia &m^^^^ volunteers may make the Government of the^^fc day somewhat popular, but when we read of | complaints made in the Council about heavy ' provincial charges made by the General Qto- f vernment. to enable them to be liberal, we begin to see that making things pleasant has serious drawbacks. A single force, with a simple drill, adapted for small country districts, to which the official staff could give their undivided attention, would be more efficient and economical than our present dual services. It is astonishing the number of different defence organizations that are deemed proper for a colony whose population scarcely exceeds a quarter of a million. Perhaps the Government will some day discover that we could actually manage to exist with, half the present number. — I am, &c., X.XX.