THE BRITISH ARMY AUXILIARY FORCES.

Kumara Times, Issue 410, 18 January 1878, Page 4

THE BRITISH ARMY AUXILIARY FORCES.

Responding to the toast of u The Army,” at the Loughborough Agricultural Meeting recently Colonel Burnaby, Grenadier Guards, observed:— Some ten or- twenty years ago, there was not that' spirit of contentment in the army upon which he Could now congratulate thOm. The men did not come in as freely and as fast as they could wish, • but now the -ranks were completely filled. And why! Because the people of the country, in their wisdom, bad seen how advisable 'it was give a soldier a good day’s pay for a good Say's work. There was no economy better than a wise ♦expenditure. The strength of the auxiliary forces of the army was, he considered, satisfactory. There were on the Ist of February last 108,000 Militia, or, to speck with exactness, he might say 108,491. Of the Yeomanry they had of the 11,817 enrolled, 9585 who were present at the inspection, but where the 2232 who did not put in an appearance were, he did not know. 0f the Volunteers they had 174,184 efficient, for each of whom the country paid 30s per year, and there were 11,417 who were non-efficients, but 'nevertheless effective, such as recruits or partly-trained men. They had thus -300,000 men belonging to the Auxiliary Forces. Nor was this all. They had no less than 632;811 men who had joined and passed through the Volunteers from its re-establishment in 1859 down to the Bth February this year, but not actually serving. Some people would tell them that England was not a military nation,'hut considering that they filled the army by voluntary enlistment and not by conscription, they would not find another army like it. So long as they made the army attractive, and gave the men good wages, he would recommend them never to have anything to do with conscription ; at the same time it would not do for them, td be thoroughly unmindful of the days in whkh they lived. There was one portion of the army, he was sorry to say, which only numbered 0000 men, and that was the reserve force: ;Many men,' after the service, sought to relieve themselves from what they termed a mill-stone around their necks. Sooner than become first-class reserve men at 4d per day, they left the service, because in many cases they said their employers told them that the time 1 they needed for training was a busy and inconvenient season. The army, when :he joined it at the age of sixteen , more than thirty years ago, was very 1 different' to what it was at the present- time.. There was not now a barfack that had not a school or library, or the means of enjoying football, practice bt assault-at-arms, amateur theatricals, and so on j and lately, in the army, it had been an endeavour oh the part of those in .authority to make things pleasant, and sometimes- when the men left a regiment, they were sorry to do .so>. . With regard to the Volunteers who had quitted the army, there were no less than 124,897 trained to the use of'the cahhpn.