Wellington Dotes.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 43, 19 August 1896, Page 2

Wellington Dotes.

The Spy Djspaktmmnt, 'From Our Own Correspondent.) The system of turning the Civil Service into a huge arrangement by which each spies on the other has now become a recognised method of gaining favour and promotion. In the Defence Forc<; discipline has disappeared altogether in consequence. The Premier is Defence Minister, Commander in Chief, and Recruiting Sergeant. Westland has provided the permanent force with its rank and ble and all the stalwart constituents who were fit having been absorbed those who are physically unfit for work are being added to the army. So are the boys as cadets to make future officers of. If a private misbehaves himself and is punish ed by the captains he does not worry | himself, he simply makes a complaint about the captain to the Premier who thereupon snubs the captain. As the Duke of Wellington said, "An army is subjected to discipline, if it were not it would be a mob ." As for any value as a fighting machine it would not be able to offer any intelligent resistance to a second class Malay pirate. The volunteers have gone back wof ully also of late years for the scurvy treatuueut they received would have discouraged the most enthusiastic of patriots. And this ornamental horde of Westlanders costs the country about £80,000 a year, enough to road and bridge a whole country, and we have nothing to show for it but a few score of: uninformed bipeds not yet conversant with the goose-step, and the munitions for the guns are mouldy with age and worthless.