MR BATHGATE ON VOLUNTEERING.

Evening Star, Issue 3182, 2 May 1873, Page 3

MR BATHGATE ON VOLUNTEERING.

While the Minister of Justice was at Tuapeka on Tuesday, a deputation from the proposed Lawrence Company of Volunteers waited upon him for the purpose of endeavoring to elicit from him what probability there would be of the Government accepting the services of the proposed corps, and also, if possible, to enlist his influence in favor of that object. In replying to the argilments of the deputation, Mr Bathgate is reported in the Tuapeka Times to have said that ho looked upon the Volunteer force of the Colony as perfectly useless for any practical purpose, and thought it was high time the constitution (f the force was altered, so as to take a more practical shape. He would like to sec the Volunteer force of the ( olony so organised that when Volunteers were ordered to attend certain drills, they would be compelled to comply. What New Zealand wanted was a body of men trained principally to the use of artillery, who would be serviceable in repelling the attacks of any privateer that might think it worth its while, in time of war, to attack the large towns on the seaboard of the Colony. The only useful arms in the service were the artillery and naval brigade; the other companies were nothing more or less than shooting clubs. A new volunteer Act would be brought forward at the ensuing sitting of the General Assembly, much more stringent than the one at present in operation, and he would advise the deputation to wait until they had an opportunity of seeing the provisions of this proposed new Act oefore they forwarded their application. In order to make the Volunteer force of the colony useful, he thought that instead of each company drilling two nights a week, if all the companies in each Province were called together each year, in one central town, and there drilled in a body for about fourteen days, the Colony would then have a body of men whom they could depend upon in the hour of need.