The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1888. Country Volunteer Corps

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 86, 7 January 1888, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1888. Country Volunteer Corps

In reply to an article, in which wo criticised some remarks made by the Post, that journal has the following, which, in justice, we republish for the benefit of our readers. We are glad to learn the editor had no intention of contemning |country corps — but we will let him speak for himself : — "The Feildiwg Star very unjustly accuses us of speaking contemptuously of country volunteer corps, and maintains that in military efficiency the country volunteers are * equal to those of the towns, while in physique they are superior. We are far from entertaining any feeling save respect for the country volunteers, and we are prepared to admit our contemporary's contentions, so far as company drill constitutes military efficiency, and fully as regards physique. Those matters, however, do not tourh the real question at issue. However efficient the country corps, as companies, may be, they are in the wrong place. Through no fault or shortcoming on their part, they are placed where they are not wanted— where they .are practically useless for the sole purposes for which volunteers require to be maintained at all." Further on our contemporary contends:— •'lf any New Zealand port is ever attacked, or threatened with attack, there is not likely to be much notice given. The assault will be sudden and sharp. The men to meet and repel it will require to be quickly on the spot. There will be no time to muster country corps, 'the members of which, as our contemporary admits, often reside at long distances from the company's parade ground, and to mass them in town. Even if they could arrive on the scene in time to take part in the defence of the port they would, however efficient in light infantry company drill, be of comparatively little use. They would naturally be of none on board the launches, steamers, and boats, which' Major- General Sohaw points out would be required to be manned by volunteers." We do not agree with the Post in this. We are prepared to say that within six hours from the alarm given — for example, in Wellington— this coast could send down five hundred men fully equipped and ready to share in whatever fighting was going, and to turn the tide probably, if the battle was a losing one. The Post is, no doubt, correct in stating they could not work in boats, but neither can the town volunteers, as a matter of fact— the Naval Brigade of course excepted. The following is amusing, as referring to country corps :■— > ''Then, as riflemen, tney would naturally be ignorant of the special features of the country in which they would be required to act, and for the defence of which there would, no doubt, be carefully prepared and rehearsed plans." Riflemen in action round the hill sides of Wellington would have vary little difficulty in learning the ** special features of the country," and acting without disturbing even the most "carefully prepared plans." Four or five hundred muscular long-winded bushmen would do far more skirmishing and fighting than twice that number of the more delicate— but not less plucky— lads from the town corps. We contend that with the telegraph and railways the services of country corps in defence of the larger centres are not to be despised, and if the Government of the day attempts to lower their prestige by making— or attempting to make — them mere rifle clubs, they will not only be guilty of an injustice, but they will make a grave error. If the members of the town corps are desirous of reserving to themselves all the honor of defending the land of which we are all so proud, they display a feeling of selfishness not in character with that esprit de corps which ought to exist among volunteers whether town or country.