The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1885. The Militia

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 136, 2 May 1885, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1885. The Militia

-•> It is understood that the first-class Militia will not be called out until the actual commencement of hostilities, should war be declared with any foreign power. Even then their services would only be required for the purpose of acting as a reserve from which to supply the necessary waste of men from casualties and sickness in the Volunteers and Armed Constabulary. The reason for this is obvious enough, as the time lor drilling and instructing in muskety recruits to the Militia would be too limited to prepare them for duty in the field against the trained bodies of an enemy whom they would have to resist. We recognise the economic wisdom of the Defence Minister in delaying as far as possible to call out the Militia, because the expense would be enormous, and one that the colony can ill afford, even although it is admitted on all sides to be justifiable by the position of affairs between Russia and England. The want of efficient officers is also patent, and although there has been a lot of very pardon- \ able sympathy with those gentlemen whose commissions were so ruthlessly canceled, yet it is an acknowledged fact that a very large percentage of them had outlived their term of usefulness as civilian soldiers, and it was an act of kindness to spare them tbe trials and dangers of war, for which their past training and present frailty of body renders them unfit. Such as are capable and in sound bodily health wLU have equal chances with the younger candidates for commissions, on'y they wiH have first to prove ibeir qualifications to the satisfaction of the officers commanding districts, which will be a much more difficult matter than in the " good old times," when commissions in the Militia were conferred too often as a reward on poetical senitors.