THE VALUE OF RIFLE SHOOTING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 224, 15 September 1908, Page 4

THE VALUE OF RIFLE SHOOTING

IUKLE CLUBS MUST DIULL. Members of l'ille clubs iu this district will doubtless read with interest the following extract from the report of the Inspector General of New Zealand Defence Forces, wdiich follows upon his complaint that very few rille clubs have any idea of drill, and members of them are of the opinion that drill is unnecessary. He writes:— "1 presume that it is not really necessary for me to point out that if the members of rille clubs never do any drill or field work of any sort, beyond shooting at a fixed target, usually, if not always, at known ranges, and cannot therefore be moved quickly about and manoeuvred as required, they will be quite useless for defence purposes—- ' indeed, in my opinion, a source of clanger to their friends instead -of their enemies. No sane man will deny tik> fact that a man who cau shoot is better material out of .which to make a soldier than a man who cannot, but to lie of any use in war he must be cap-, able of being put where he is wanted, and shown what to shoot at, which means that there must be leaders and that all must have some knowledge of manoeuvre, lire control, (ire discipline, etc. To give any hope of success, battle (as defined by a great authority) must lie a combined effort directed by trained leaders, and this certainly tannot be accomplished by men with no other training than target shooting. '•it will probably be said by advocates of rifle sliooting only that that i great soldier, Lord Roberts, advocates the training of every man to shoot. He does, but no one in the world knows bett'er than he that ride *hooting only will not suffice. In a letter from Lord Roberts, read last February at a meeting of llie Xational Rifle Association in Sydney, the following passage occurs: "Tile complete soldier required training, discipline, marchingpower, morale, and rille shooting. All these were essentials, and nothing would be gained by exalting one to the detriment of the other. It w-is advisable that citizen soldiers should practise rille shooting, a comparatively easy thing for them to do in view of their leisure time. Nevertlfcless (lie other points should not be forgotten. The individual should learn rille shrmlim: bv himself, not so with drill, disr cipline, and co-operation, which required n period of continuous training under proper organisation and goud officers."