CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 30, 3 January 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

(We do not hold ourselves responsible tor the opinions expressed by our correspondents). OUR DEFENCES. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TELEPHONE. Sir,—Among the crowd of gods and godesses who sprawled naked about Olympus, one deity was always represented armed, with her helmet on her head, her shield on her arm, and her spear in her hand. That goddess was Minerva, the Goddess of Wisdom. The moral lies on the surface. It is true wisdom for a state or community to be armed to resist aggression. It is absolute folly for a state or community to neglect reasonable military precautions; and never was this truth more apparent or more important than now, when our impulsive neighbors, the French, are endangering the peace of the world, and directly menacing the Australian Colonies and New Zealand by their senseless arrogance and their policy of greed and aggression. Now, it seems to me—and I speak from observation, experience, and study, and not rashly or hastily—that the training of our infantry and cavalry volunteers is not all that it should be. We must bear this in mind: that it is not enough to protect our harbors by batteries and torpedoes. There must always be an adequate infantry to defend those batteries and the torpedo-boats and apparatus from molestation on the landside. Take Auckland for instance. Why should not a force landed at Onehunga, or even at Howick, march upon Auckland and carry the harbor defences by storm ? And the same fate might befall any of our New Zealand towns. As I take it, we cannot consider ourselves safe unless and until we have a volunteer infantry force numerous enough and well-trained enough to meet any hostile force that is likely to trouble us, and to over-

whelm it with rifle-fire, as the Boers served poor Colley at Ingoss and Majuba. Now, our volunteers are neither numerous enough, nor do they, I think, receive the light sort of training. The fact is, that whilst the regulations now in force are almost oppressive and unreasonable in the number of parades they exact from the men, the instruction imparted is, for the most part, useless. The men are exercised everlastingly in drill-sheds. They are expected to be as perfect as soldiers of the line, to wheel like a gate, and to dress their ranks with jealous care. And so then is the same dull round of company drill, day after day, week after week, month after month, “ front form company, right form company, countermarching,” and even forming “ company square,” as if the fabled “Horse Marine” were likeiy to pay New Zealand a visit. Firing exercise, manual exercise, and bayonet exercise ad nauseum. Now, what we are in danger of forgetting is this: that the system of instruction required for the regular soldier differs essentially from that required by an irregular force, embodied for purely defensive purposes. For instance, it cannot be denied that a great many of the movements in which the regular soldier is practised are unnecessary, Lord Wolseley says (page 188, “Soldier’s Pocket-book,” 3rd Ed.) “As for drill, in respect to the battalion and brigade evolutions required during an action, the worst militia regiment can do enough for all practical purposes.” Again, the mathematical exaoti'.ude required in tire different formations, and the rigid accuracy expected in the maniement dee armea is, from one point of view, a work of supererogation. But it is these small and apparently useless observances which teach the habit of obedience, and so create discipline, that wondrous bond which binds the British Army together as in a band of iron, so that in the pride of arms, none doubt their might to bear down every obstacle that man can oppose to their fury. The soldier is purposely trained to excessive regularity of habit. The first lesson he learns is to be exact in waiting upon time. His hours of going to bed, of rising, of going to meals, of going to parades, are all fixed, and he is punished if he neglects to attend to them with precision. His person, his arms, his room, must all be cleaned, and they are examined at least twice a day in every wellcommanded regiment. Now, we know that if arms are cleaned once a month, and carefully put by, they would remain perfectly serviceable, and that men and rooms if examined once a-day, or once in two or three days, would be sufficiently watched to secure cleanliness; but then habits would be lost. The irksomeness of ever having a rifle in the hand, and of ever watching time, would gradually increase and encroach upon the system of obedience, and the greater the distance between the hours when obedience is demanded, the greater number of instances of disobedience will occur, till finally disobedience would become the rule, obedience the exception; and a man’s body being equally dependent upon habit with his mind would soon feel the rifle to be no longer its companion, but its torment; and a shadow falls upon the glory of an army when soldiers grow tired of their arms. But all that is out of place and even impossible in a Volunteer force. When once the Volunteer has learnt the few, simple Company movements which are really mdispensible, when he can go through the Manual, Firing, and Bayonet Exercises with moderate precision, then less than half the parades now required would suffice. But, every one of these parades should be daylight or moonlight parades, in the open; the time should be made the most of, and none but really useful information should be imparted, The Volunteer should be carefully trained in the “ formation for attack,” in skirmishing, in the art of taking cover, in forming advance and rear-guards, in outpost duty, in the Shelter-Trench Exercise, in matters, in short, corresponding as nearly as possible with the work to be done when engaged with an enemy. No time should be wasted in the constant repetition of the showy movements described in our Drill Book. There are some valuable hints as to the practical training of Volunteers in Bruce’s “Life of Sir William Napier” (Vol. ii., p. 477). Rapidity, caution, the exercise of the individual intelligence, “ Fire Discipline” (the “fire low,fire slow" maxim) are the qualities that have to be looked for from the Volunteer. Indeed, I should like to see a much more liberal issue of blank ammunition than there is at present. “ There is no training so good as to divide your men into two parties,—the.one to defend, the other to attack. The more men the better. One thousand men will teach themselves and their officers better than one hundred; but one hundred, or even less, will go a great way ” (Sir William Napier). The ammunition that is to be fired on a given day ought not, I submit, to be issued all at once. Say there are twenty rounds per man. Ten rounds only ought to be in the men’s pouches, five rounds per man should be c& :ied in haversacks by steady men, told off to issue it as required, and the remaining five rounds should be in a cart, or on a pack-horse in the rear, as a reserve, from which the men with the haversacks could replenish their store. Thus the men would be imperceptibly taught the advantage and the necessity of economising ammunition. And it goes without saying that the most ample facilities should be given for rifle practice, and no pains, and, indeed, no expense, should be spared to make the men, individually, quick, good shots. Prizewinners, and corps which have a high average of shooting, should be petted and rewarded in every possible way ; and, wherever practicable, “ Field firing ” should be practised— i.e., the men taught to advance in the “ Attack formation ” against wooden dummies, in shelter trenches, or in the open, firing ball cartridge by vollies and independently, as in action, a careful record bring kept of the results. If, in place of the monotonous, irritating work in sheds or rooms which is now called drill and parade, a system of varied instruction of the kind indicated was judiciously carried on by commanding officers, interest, instead of disgust, would unquestionably be excited. I have heard some say, “ We have no ground,” or, “We have no time.” The answer is, “You have no brains.” Any ground does, even an ordinary road if no fields are available, and as to time, what of the long summer evenings, and those nights when, even in winter, the moon gives the light of day ? One word more, and I have done with this part of my subject. The drill sergeant should never be allowed to touch a volunteer company. The recruits once instructed, that functionary ought to be functus office. I know a smart drill sergeant makes a very pretty parade company, but such a company is unfit for service. It can have no confidence in its officers. All instruction beyond the mere rudiments should be imparted by the officers of the corps, under the direction and with assistance of the officer commanding the district. So much as to the infantry. As to the volunteer horse, they should be organised to act as mounted infantry. They should certainly not be allowed to call themselves “Hussars” and “Dragoon.” A volunteer cavalryman, the best authorities say, is a contradiction in terms, for the cavalry arm is a weapon of quite peculiar sensitiveness and delicacy. It grows; it is not made. It takes the transmitted esprit de coips of several generations to produce and perfect it, and no volunteer cavalry can be worthy of the name; whilst the same men as “ mounted infantry ” would be simply invaluable. Now, a volunteer army thus formed and trained would be a numerous, because a contented, body of men, and it would be competent to crush any enemy that is likely to bo found on our shores. In saying this, I have history on my side. Surely the British soldier, “he who comes on with such a conquering force,” is not inferior to the French soldier or Russian soldier! Yet we know how the British soldier fared in America when opposed to an armed peasantry, not merely at that historic bridge of which Emerson sings—- “ By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard through the world ” but also at Bunker’s Hill, Saratoga, Yorktown, and New Orleans. And is there not the recent lesson of the Transvaal ?

But I am trespassing too much upon your space, and must stop. I am scarcely conceited enough to suppose that my small voice will command attention in these matters, and yet I cannot refrain from lifting it up to testify against the croak of the Timaru Herald, and against what seems to me to be the besetting sin of our present volunteer organisation—a sin which is undoubtedly driving many good men from the ranks, and seriously affecting the efficiency of the force.— I am, &c., Spectator.