Easter Encampments

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 133, 20 April 1886, Page 2

Easter Encampments

The lateness in the summer season on which the Easter holidays fall this year raises the question whether it will not be desirable in future years to select some other time, to be fixed by law, to hold these very necessary encampments for the instruction of the volunteers to act together in large bodies in the field. The end of the harvest would doubtless be the most convenient season. Any time in the last two weeks of March or the first { two weeks in April would suit every district in the colony. An objection would no doubt be raised that Easter ; is already a recognised holiday term both by employers and employes, but such objection may be met by the j plain fact that these encampments are not mere holidays to those men who take part in them ; on the contrary, there is a considerable amount of hard and irksome work to be done. It is true that numbers of interested j spectators in search of amusement make a point of attending, and possibly derive a considerable amount of enjoyment in witnessing the military manoeuvres and sham fights ; but it appears to us that these ought not to be considered in the matter. The j convenience of the men engaged is the most important point. We think that as they give their services to their country as volunteers, they are far more entitled to enjoy their leisure during the Easter term, than those i who merely stand by during the rest ' of the year and look on. We do not anticipate much difficulty would be experienced from the opposition of employers, while the men in joining corps would undertake to perform a specified duty, so that it would not be merely a matter of option, as it is at present, whether they attended the encampments or not.