DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 553, 27 March 1876, Page 4

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

“ Studies in Political Economy,’ by Sir Anthony Musgrave, Governor of South Australia, has been very favorably revised by the Morning Advertiser and other papers. A letter from Rome gives a glowing account of the Pope’s reception of the Lord Mayor of Dublin in rich costume, with the cross of the Order of St Gregory, and 150 bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and laymen, all Irish. The address, read by the Bishop of Ossoiy, Cardinal Cullen’s nephew, described the feelings of faith, devotion, and fidelity animating Irish Catholics, and referred to their terrible struggles. A rich offering was presented by Monsignore Kirby, rector of the Irish College, The Pope in reply said—“ Ireland has always possessed a wealth the most precious given us to enjoy in this world. That wealth is faith, which, like a precious and inexhaustible treasury, has always sustained Ireland amid the numerous vicissitudes with which it has had to struggle for several centuries. Ireland has always fought with the spiritual sword of faith, and with this it has obtained, if not complete victories, at least an honourable truce, which is a sufficient proof of the efficacy of faith. You who are present are giving a signal example of your faith. Some of you have come expressly from Ireland, and the representative of the first city in your island has come here to prostrate himself at the tomb of the Holy Apostles, to renew the warmth of a devotion capable of every trial, and to show the energy of the faith which animates the Irish Catholics.”

All the recent telegrams from Khokand have been leading up to the one just received, announcing that “ about the middle of January, by which time the necessary reinforcements will have arrived,” the Russians will cross the Sir Darya, and conquer the southern part of the Khanate as they have conquered the northern. The onlv real resistance they have met with in the former has been originated by a few of the nomads known as the Kipchaks, the Khokanders themselves being the moat contemptible foes Russia has encountered in her path of conquest. General Kaufmana showed his opinion of them by entering the country, after deposing the fugitive Khan who was driven from it, with a mere handful of men ; just such troops, in fact, as could be spared from the nearest Turkestan garrisons. Before this time, as we know by Herr Weinberg’s narrative of the diplomatic expedition which preceded the late annexation, the GovernorGeneral had begun to hire Kipchaks to eke out his small supply of Cossack horse ; and, had the experiment been tried a little more boldly, the after difficulties would probably have been saved, since the few Kipchaks with Herr Weinberg’s party proved as faithful and efficient as any Cossack soldiery. That the Russians are now obliged to wait “the necessary reinforcements” need surprise no one. From the first they have found their new acquisitions too great a financial drain to allowthe Empire to support a large Ipdy of troops there. In the whole trans-Caucasian country there are not more than troops for all purposes, and of these not 10,000 can be allotted the various Khanates recently conquered directly or brought under the protectorate of Russian Turkestan.

The Thames Advertiser has an article on the late rifle competition and its lessons, in which it says “ The rifle competition just concluded should have the effect of convincing the Defence Minister that the system hitherto pursued, of selecting as representatives "only those who have scored a given number of points in competitive firing, does not result in bringing the best marksmen to the front. In order to make this plan successful, it would be necessary for all circumstances and conditions to be coincident. The ranges must be all equally good as regards position and light; but this is impossible. That which may be considered a good score at one set of butts would be inferior at another. One squad may shoot during high wind and rain, another in a calm, and the state of the atmosphere, as affecting light, essentially differing in both cases. The weapons should also be of one class, and of the same excellence, but it is not so. The Auckland men, in competing with the medium, laboured under the greatest disadvantage ; the Thames were better off, possessing both long and medium; but the Otago men, who had the long Snider rifle served out to them some months before the competition took place, were favored above all others. There is as great a difference between the efficiency of the long and medium Snider as there is between the long and medium Enfield. In Otago, where the men had acquired proficiency in the use of the best weapon, a larger number qualified, and the coveted belt again went South. This conclusively proves the system of selection to be faulty, and the necessity of resorting to some other for selecting representatives, and the subject is one which in all fairness should receive the attention of the committee who are appointed to investigate these matters. It is suggested that instead of basing a selection upon scoring a fixed number of points, each district should be allowed to send a certain number of men who in competition make the highest aggregate scores, under regulations. The number of representatives from each district to be decreed according to the strength of the companies, the muster at drill and parade, regular attendance, and the general efficiency of the corps. Some such system would produce the result for which these belts and monetary prizes are voted by the Government, namely, to encourage the Volunteer movement; but at present we understand the status of the Volunteer in the South is not what it should be. Instead of giving an example to the rest of the colony by their strength and soldierly efficiency they have degenerated to something like rifle clubs under Government patronage, and it is fto a district, whose skeleton companies should have been long since disbanded (if our information be correct) that the highest prizes awarded by the Govern* meat have gene.'*