VOLUNTEERS & TERRITORIALS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 204, 7 December 1910, Page 5

VOLUNTEERS & TERRITORIALS

INTERESTING DUNEDIN CASE. • By Telegraph.—Press Association. Dunedin, Last Night. In the Supreme Court to-day the City Council proceeded against Lieut.-Oolonel Smyth and the Attorney-General, the object being to determine whether, upon the true construction of the will of the late Mr. Andrews, and of the Defence Act of 1009, the trustees of the will for the benefit and advantage of the Dunedin Volunteers have lapsed or become inoperative owin? to the passing of the Defence Act, 1908, and the Defence Act, 1909, or otherwise. The late Mr. Samuel Henry Andrews left a will, under which the Dunedin Volunteers benefit to the extent of between £IOO and £2OO a .year. In the event of the Dunedin Volunteers being disbanded, or ceasing to exist as a regiment, the property providing the trust funds is to go to the City Corporation. The. case was heard before Mr. Justice Williams. Mr. W. C. MacGregor appeared for the City Council, and Mr. ,T. F. M. Fraser for the defendants. Mr. MacGregor argued that in New Zealand the change from Volunteers to Territorials was a change in status as well as in name, whereas in Great Britain the change was one in name only. The Territorials no longer answered to the description of volunteers. Every man, with certain exceptions, was liable to compulsory service. Clearly the Volunteer force as such had ceased to exist.

Mr. Fraser argued that no Volunteer corps formed before the Act of 1909 had ceased to exist by virtue, of that Act, the effect of which.-'had been to reorganise and rename them, but not to do away with them. The Act provided that property held by Volunteer corps was still to be held by them under the name of the Territorial Force. Where the Legislature had intended that corps should cease to exist it said so in plain terms. The only important differences made to Volunteers by the new Act were that they would n»t elect their officers below the rank of field-officers, and that thev were made subject to military law. His Honor reserved his decision.