VOLUNTEERS RESIGNING BY THOUSANDS.

Motueka Star, Volume IV, Issue 144, 6 January 1903, Page 4

VOLUNTEERS RESIGNING BY THOUSANDS.

Since the beginning of November thousands of volunteers in England have sent in their resignations, as a protest against the new regulations which came into force on the Ist ult. No fewer than 5000 resigned on November Ist, and, up till the time the last mail left England, each day brought a fresh crop of resignations. Naturally the end of the war and the subsidence of the spasmodic outburst of military enthusiasm led many volunteers to withdraw ; but after making every allowance on this score, the number of resignations is so great that there can be no doubt about the existence of a strong spirit of discontent throughout the volunteer force. The official statistics tell their own tale. The Victoria and St. George's Rifles, which on November Ist numbered 863 men, has been reduced by withdrawals to "135; the Queen's Westminsters have shrunk from 1675 men to 231; the Inns of Court from 640 to 101 ; the London Scottish from 939 to 148 ; and so on. The large majority of the withdrawals have been made, by volunteers who joined prior to the war, many of them being very old members. The root of the whole trouble appears to be the regulation making it compulsory for the volunteers to go into camp for six days in August of each year. According to the Daily Mail, it is not the duration of the camps which has caused the discontent, but the fact that the}' are fixed for August, which is the holiday month, and therefore the only chance open to many volunteers to enj joy themselves as civilians. To meet the difficulty, it has been suggested that standing camps should be formed in various centres, to which the volunteer might repair for his week's train-" ing at any period of the summer which suited him best. It is evident that the War Office will have* to unbend a little if the dissatisfaction is to be removed and the wholesale resignations checked.