WASTE OF TIME. The D Battery's Training.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 239, 28 January 1905, Page 6

WASTE OF TIME. The D Battery's Training.

THE local field artillery (D BaJbtery) have been galloping about at the Hutt for a fortnight with hired horses. They have been getting ready for shell practice The field artillery are formed to throw shells. The guns are made to fire The men are trained to fire them It cost about a hundred pounds to hire those horses to pull the guns that are made to fire The men of the battery capitate so that they may be useful to fire the guns. If they don't fire them they are no good If the-* 7 don't fire them it's no good having field artillery or having a master gunner, or training officers # » • The D. Battery haven't fired anythino except a few blank rounds. They have come home again not having accomplished the purpose for which they are intended. The Defence Department seems to view these gunners m a facetious spirit The gunners ask "May we do the work (shellpractice) for which we are formed?" The Departments says they may if they can find any place to fire. The Department doesn t arrange this It apparent! v leaves it to chance. The field artillery officers pick a spot themselves If the owners of the ground are willing, the practice happens for which all the money has been spent, and the fortnight's training put in. * • • If one landholder says he won't have shells fired thiough his air, even though they drop on somebody else's land, he is thus enabled to make the practice of no effect, and the training is wasted This is what lias happened to the D Battery What is the good of these guns and gunners ? Why all this galloping about with hired horses ? Why not disband them ? The D Batteiry have accomplished as much as the man who dipped his pen in the inkpot for a day. and then showed the world a blank sheet. ♦ # # If the Department wants these gunners to Dut in shell practice, why doesn t it get some ground before the camp starts at all, and not leave it until the day before breaking camp for the officers to do? The Department has eulogised the work of the field batteries, but it won't let them shoot It's a pity to have eighteen good waggon horses drawing useless ironmongery about for a fortnight when they could be working.