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Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3522, 9 April 1880, Page 2

National panics are like epidemios; they appear suddenly, spread quickly, and though never without a cause, it is often difficult to discover it. This was the case in the panic which produced the Volunteer Force in Great Britain in 1859. No sensible man feared invasion, but there was a feeling extant that it was time to guard against even au improbable catastrophe, and so the present generation of civilian defenders sprang into existence in the mother country. From Great Britain the movement soon spread to Canada, to India, and even to the Australian Colonies. New Zealand had another incentive in the shape of an aboriginal enemy to lead her to the enrolment of a similar force. In fact the reasons which led to the formation of the New Zealand Force will almost bear comparison to the urgent and obvious reasons which led our forefathers at the beginning of this century to arm and muster with warlike pomp and parade. Our settlers, like them, were •roused to * patriotic •nthusiaim

which called on them to defend their hearths and homes against the foe, not one coming from foreign parts, but an internal enemy, whom we had perhaps by impolitic treatment roused to a revengeful disposition. The Farihaka difficulty is still dragging its slow length along, without signs of any speedy solution, and now is no time for our civil defenders to grow lookwarm in their fondness for military acquirements. Although the Thames Volunteers made an early application for temporary employment as a defence force, their services which on previous occasions had been accepted and found to be valuable, were kindly but peremptorily declined, and a large increase was made to the strength of the Armed Constabulary, the pet force of Southern political parties of all shades. The Thames community is undoubtedly a patient and long-suffering one; we make no distressing appeals on behalf of our unemployed, but after maintaining for a number of years a large force of wellbehaved and efficiently-trained soldiers, at but a trifling cost to the State, we can bat point out that it would at once have been a graceful and a well-deserved recognition of our deserts, if a few of oar officers and a selected number of our men had been allowed to form part of the army of occupation on the Waimate Plains. As road makers our men would have been far more valuable auxiliaries to the regular force, i.e., the Constabulary, than the militia force organised from the cities of the South, and sent to work as road makers near Farihaka. Our men, as we have before stated, are ackowledged to possess discipline and military efficiency, so that in case of their services being required in the field, they would have required no tedious preparation to fit them for an encounter with the dusky aborigines. From time to time» within the last six months, numerous murmurs have reached our ears from both officers and men, that they have no heart to maintain their enthusiasm in military matters, seeing that when occasion arises on which their actual worth might be tested as available troops, they are treated as a toy and a plaything, in fact as if they were feather bed soldiers and not hardy sons of toil, ardent for an opportunity of increasing the prestige of a district always known to be foremost in volunteering for service at the front. Should a brush be experienced with the Maories, we fear the raw and undisciplined "unemployed" militia of the South will prove bat a source of danger to the Armed Constabulary. They may be all individually brave, but they are not like our men who are trained to arms, and are accustomed to obey implicitly the orders of their chosen and constitutionally-elected officers, in whom they possess that confidence which is the most important element of success in all attempts of an attacking or defending force. Thames officers testify that they find no difficulty in enforcing discipline among their men ; they all joined the ranks con amore, and they have always worked well together. Theinfantry tnd naval forces of the Thames seem to have become permanent institutions, but a wise Government should look to it, that their self esteem be maintained, which will not be the case if the present system of discouragement and neglect be long continued.