THE MILITIA.

Auckland Times, Volume 3, Issue 148, 8 November 1845, Page 3

THE MILITIA.

It has been intimated to us from various quarters that our remarks upon this corps have been considered unwise and ungenerous. No man of course can hope to please everybody, or to have the enviable success of falling in with universal opinion. We have been misunderstood upon this matter; and we beg leave to recal the recollections of those who differ with us to the opinions which we originally expressed upon the first proposal of the establishment of such an inefficient force in the country. When it was reasonably requested of the parent land that she should furnish a sufficient protection to her infant colony, that sleepy old gentleman Lord Glenelg awoke from one of his habitual trances and suggested that the only military defence, we could require, would be most properly furnished irom the bulk of the Colonists themselves.

This idea was too tempting a one, to the grinding parsimony of the British Cabinet, who kuew about as little (and cared perhaps no more for New Zealand) than his sleepy Lordship aforesaid, to be disregarded ; and accordingly instructions were sent out to His Excellency Governor Fitzroy, to enrol every man capable of bearing arms, in the anomalous ranks of this compulsive service. Captain Fitzroy when he first introduced the measure to the Legislative Council, declared, that altho' it should pass by universal consent, he would put his veto upon it. It is true that his objections were founded on a different basis from our own ; he was afraid (good easy man) that the measure would give alarm and discontent to his dear Maorie protegees ; while our opposition was grounded upon the manifest

injustice of calliug upon a handful of settlers to array themselves against a nation of many thousand fighting savages ; taking the farmer from his plough, the merchant from his desk, and the labouring man of every class from his most useful pursuit. How effectual such a course would have been, let the present condition of the country, and the present military and naval armament testify. We never had the remotest idea of disparaging the services of those who have actually borne arms in the militia ; on the contrary, we have always borne witness to their ready zeal. Our opposition has been directed to the paltry policy of that maternal Government, which would have constituted them our only defence. Present, circumstances will bring about such full and just consideration for the Colony, that it will be no longer necessary for every, or any man to leave the useful pursuits of peace for the toils and dangers of soldiership.