Volunteer Items

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 114, 19 March 1891, Page 2

Volunteer Items

. As there cannot be sufficient men present at the parade of the Manchester Rifles called for Friday night, Captain Pleasants desires us to state that those who do attend may come in plain clothes. Several of the Wellington corps have discovered a grievance in connection with the Easter Encampment at Palmerston. It appears that old officers, strangers to the Wellington men, have been placed in positions of command, while local officers, under whom the corps have been accustomed to work, have been "left out in the cold." Unless this trouble is removed the men aggrieved are not likely to muster. If the Hon. J. Seddon is able to carry out his views on the questions of the Volunteer forces he will raise up for himself a host of warm friends. He says he means to reduce the paid military force, and encourage volunteers by placing them on a better and more permanent and certain footing, at the same time looking to them to take a proportionately larger share in providing for the defence of the colony. " I intend," said Mr Seddon, "so soon as I bave got down to the bed rock in the business, to prepare a plan for improving the position of the volunteer force. The main feature of the plan is that the capitation allowances shall be something that they can rely upon permanently instead of being liable to constant changes. I propose that it shall be difinitely fixed by Parliament for a term of at least three years certain." It is clear that Mr Seddon intends to endeavor to show that the sneer Captain Eussell favored him with in the House was undeserved.