LORD ROBERTS ON SHOOTING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 411, 16 July 1908, Page 4

LORD ROBERTS ON SHOOTING.

Field-Marshal Karl Roberts recently wrote to Colonel Campbell Walker, president of the Camberley District Rifle Club, congratulating the club on a successful year’s work, adding : “We are, I feel sure, on the right lines in not relaxing our efforts to make rifle shooting a national pastime and accomplishment, as well as the important auxiliary in the training of our citizen soldiers. The great advantage of rifle shooting is that it can be practised by the individual in his leisure time, provided ranges are brought within easy reach. But precisely because rifle shooting is a matter that can be easily learned by men in their leisure time, it is of paramount importance that those who are concerned in promoting rifle shooting should constantly keep before their minds, and before the country the absolute necessity of discipline, drill, and combined training, in order that the rifle shooting acquired by the individual during his youth, and in his leisure time, may be applied usefully for the purpose of defence.

“It would be a most serious matter, if, in the praiseworthy endeavour to promote rifle shooting throughout the country, these things were lost sight of, or even minimised in the slightest degree. Let me repeat, the individual can learn rifle shooting by himself, but he cannot learn drill, he canuot learn discipline, he cannot learn co-operation. These things can only be learned by a period of continuous training under proper conditions, with good officers, and it is the principle of compulsory military training I should like to see adopted in this country. But whether it is adopted or not, rifle shooting is of the utmost importance as being the first requisite of a soldier, and it is only by the existence of such rifle clubs as yours that the young can learn and the older men can practise the art of rifle shooting.