CITIZEN OFFICERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1507, 1 August 1912, Page 4

CITIZEN OFFICERS.

It may safely be said that the more perfectly one may draft a set of /regulations having for their object the administrative stability of a given enterprise the less easy itwill be to over-ride any one of them without disturbing the equilibrium of the whole. An interesting, if' somewhat unwelcome, demonstration of- the truth of this remark is now before the public. The new defence regulations which were drafted by the Imperial General Staff Officer's at General Headquarters for the administrative control of the citizen forces, are considered to be very well adapted to suit the special circumstances -under which our system of military defence is constituted. Arising out of a deliberate but somewhat short-sighted disregard for one of these regulations—on the grounds of expediency—the General Officer Commanding the New Zealand lias been obliged to detach his attention from larger questions of administrative import in order to explain to his Minister, and to the general public, why Captain G. E. Bijieon, of the Wellington Boys' Institute Senior Cadet Company was allowed to take seniority over Captain Ateo Fp.andi, of the Y.M.C.A. Senior Cadet Company. Captain Frandi, prior to his appointment to that rank, had been a colour-ser-geant in a Territorial company, and admittedly a competent and highlyefficient non-commissioned officer. When the Senior Cadet companies were being organised the authorities were at some difficulty to find officers, and it was_ decided to offer, without,examination, direct commissions of the rank of captain to suitable men. Officers serving with the Senior Cadets are posted to the Unattached List (Category li), but it is distinctly provided that first appointments to direct commissions in this list, arc to be in the rank of second lieutenant only. It is the Hver-riding of this latter provision in tho case of Captain Fiiandi, and other Senior Cadet officers appointed under -similar circumstances which -is the fundamental cause of the Fuandi-Sijikon dispute, and, quite conceivably, of other disputes which have not yet come to the cars of the public. - Captain_Simeon was a lieutenant m the Fifth Regiment for some seven years prior to transferring, subsequently to C'aptain> FitANnr's appointment, to the Unattached List for service with the Senior Cadets, and the authorities accepted his stipulation that he should be given seniority over certain Senior Cadet officers when he transferred. In order to give him this seniority, his commission was ante-dated—an improper thing to do, by the wav. As a protest, Captain Fjiandi resigned, and ventilated his grievance in publie. Tho authorities hfivo boon placod in the very invidious position of denying to-Captain Ateo Fiiandi the seniority to,which ho is technically entitled by virtue of his irregular appointment to a rank to which he was not entitled in the first place. Captain Fhandi rests his claim upon the regulation which provides .that "Officers appointed to the Unattached List for service with the Senior Cadets will enjoy- the same privileges and precedence, and will be subjcct to the same rules and conditions as regards 'first appointment, promotion, retirement, emoluments as other Territorial officers, with whom they are interchangeable." The Fp.andi-Sijieon incident should _ serve to warn the military authorities of the danger of departing, even with the best, intention and on grounds of expediency, from the letter and spirit of regulations which their united wisdom, in the first instance, deemed to be necessary in the, interests of military discipline and efficiency.