Volunteer Notes.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2111, 18 June 1898, Page 2

Volunteer Notes .

The Commandant, Col. Pole-PentoD, with Col. Batiks and Major Maddocks, inspected the Te Aroha Volunteers, and examined the officers and noncommissioned. officers, on Thursday night. The Company fell in at 7,.30 in Smardon’s coach house; there being 1 : a muster of 40 out of a roll of 52. After a very close inspection, Lieuts. Wild and Scott put the men through the firing and exercises, after which they were marched tojffie bridge and the Company were put’ through the tactics of the defence of the bridge by Capt. Whiteley. Ou their return the=' non -commissioned officers; •' Cb?| Sefgt. Stanley, Sergts. Salmon, Maiugay, and Jackson, drilled-their sections. Yesterday morning the Commandant and the ; other officers inspected the site for the new range suitable for the new long range rifle, and expressed theniselves satisfied- that it would be &: perfect fy secure and safe one up td.l JOQ yards* - / Which they visited the Rev. Canipbell 4 ® . battery; iand ‘were much iotefested in the works; especially the ft&hace treatment, Everything being explained by Mr Campbell, who very courteously shewed his visitors the different processes of the gas treatment. ;-: f The Commandant and staff left by train on Friday morning for Hamilton to inspect the Waikato Mounted Rifles, who are in camp for their yearly training under Capt. Reid.

Aa considerable attention is? now being paid to volunteering, an jjMicle in the May number of. Blackwood, by Captain Lynden-Bell on • ‘The Volunteers as a Fighting Force/ is of interest. The writer is, of course,’ dealing with the British volunteers. Promising that hie remark® are not- intended to apply to the glaringly inefficient units of the volunteer force, but to its general average of merit and military value, Captain Lynden-Bell deals with the twe main arguments put forward by the apologists of the volunteers. The firnt of these i® that the deficiencies of the force can bej'emedied after a few months mobilisation: Answer— As mobilisation will not take place until invasion is imminent*, these few months will not be available. The second argument is that our naval superiority makes invasion impossible: Aus wer—Nelson, Wellington* Napoleon, and many prominent , soldiers of later times, considered that the invasion of England is possible. To day the highest authorities on naval warfare agree that the outcome of great sea-fight of the future is absolutely uncertain. Our ancient naval supremacy has now dwindled to naval superiority—a very different affair. Invasion, which was considered passable at the beginning of the century cannot at the end of it bs dismissed m impossible. The writer then points out the marked inferiority of physique in the volunteer battalions located in towns ; the inferiority of training enforced on a volunteer recruit as compared with that of & line or militia recruit, and the general inferiority of volunteer musketry. He also passes au unfavourable verdict on the discipline of the force, and the professional efficiency and knowledge of the officers. On the whole, judging the volunteers by the only real standard by which any troops can beji%ad, namely, fitness for war, his a military critic is by no means favourable. • ' ‘ ••