NEW ZEALAND VOLUNTEERS.

Kumara Times, Issue 3124, 6 November 1886, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND VOLUNTEERS.

Colonel Sir George Whitmore has recently been giving some interesting information regarding the Volunteers. He said that he had carefully compared the accounts received from competent officers of the Defence Force and Volunteers in the other Australian colonies with the status of the force here and he felt confident that under the heads of cost, efficiency, and numbers, the comparison was altogether in favor of New Zealand. As to the coat it was £78,000 against £182,000 for Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia combined ; as to efficiency the New Zealand force was beyond comparison the best, and he knew that it was bad to beat as regards conduct, physique, knowledge of its military and technical work, or its discipline. He believed there was no such Volunteer force out of England, and he hoped to lee the* day when a comparison with even the English Volunteers would not be to our disadvantage. Its organisations for war was now complete, and it no longer, as the late Sir P. Scratchley had said, consisted of little fractional bodies of armed men without system or military organisation. That the cost of the New Zealand Volunteers is less than one half of that of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia put together, our readers will not be surprised to learn, but they will not be prepared for the statement as to numbers, which is that in New Zealand there are 200 more than in those three colonies combined.”...Under the new system this colony could without disturbing its present organisation and by a single proclamation place its corps on a war footing and increase the force to 12,000 men.