DEFENCE NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 21 August 1907, Page 4

DEFENCE NOTES.

By "Atillery." In hid first report Colonel E. 11. D.ivies, Inspector-General of the New Zealand Forces, says a superintenfing officer has recently been appointed for rille clubs, who will, in future, inspect and report to the Inspector-General Winn necessary. The Colonel hopes that on some future occasion opportunities will be found to induce the members of these clubs to turn out and take part in field manoeuvres, when it will be possible to form an opinion as to their usefulness for active service under present conditions. Dealing with the general state of efficiency of officers and men. the Inspector-General writes: "I desire to make it clear that I am surethe spirit which animates all ranks of the Forces is excellent. It' it were not so, they would not be giving up their time, willingly and cheerfully, to the duty of trying to become fit to protect their country, their homes, their mothers, sisters, wives and children, while the enormous majority of the ablebodied manhood of the country is merely looking on, and sometimes. I regret to say. trying to discourage them. "As far as drill and discipline go, the state of things generally is very satisfactory, but something further is required Wore it can be honestly said that a Force is prepared for war. Without doubt the vital thing is to train the officers to command their troops in the field over any country they may find themselves in, and under any conditions that may arise.

"To accomplish this they must be instructed in the field, and in daylight. Practical tactics, a knowledge of, and an eye for, country, and the power of nuking the best military use of all sorts of ground, can no more be taught in a drill hall than swimming can be taught without getting into the water. . . The standard of intelligence we have, and the training must be got Theory, of course, is most necessary, and should be mastered before or together with practice, but theory alone is of little use, and I am convinced that if officers and men can be taken out and shown what they are trying to work up to, they will b.- much more content to go back and work np their drill and theory in order that they may be better fitted to work in the field next time: No one would I»e content to go on for ever practising scales if they had never heard a tune played, and volunteers soon get tired of mere drill if they cannot see what it leads to, or the use of it. . . .

It is the heads of any business (in this case the officers) who first must be made efficient. . . Lord oberts says: 'lt

must not be overlooked that, while soldiers can lie made fit for active service with comparatively short training, officers cannot Ite improvised. Colonel Henderson in his 'Science of War,' points

out that 'with good officers, ami a certain amount of previous training, there is no reason why bodies of infantry, artillery, or mounted infantry, composed entirely of unprofessional soldiers, should' not do excellent service in the field.'" Speaking of our New Zealand infantry companies the Inspector-General says that almost without exception the rule is that where the officers are good and keen, the NX.O.'s. and men are also. . . . The physique varies, there licing a great number of young and weedy men in several of Ihe town corps. It is a striking fact that the farther south one goes the better, generally speaking, is the physique of the town infantry corps, dne perhaps to the harder and colder climate in the South.