41

H.— 9

obliged to enlist men, and not only enlist them, but search for them, and actually make it worth their while to become Volunteers for the last three months of the Volunteer year, so that the real members of the corps may be able to earn capitation. Of course, with proper inspection, and a really responsible person at the head of affairs, such a system could not exist. As it is certain that the conditions governing one centre or locality are not equally binding in another, so it must be seen that it is impossible to lay down hard-and-fast rules, to operate under the most opposite circumstances. I can only speak of things as I have found them. I have made a very searching inspection. With a better state of affairs generally, I have little doubt but that the tide of Volunteering will once more flow :at present it is but very low water. If Volunteering ceases to exist, the colony will have to face a much larger expenditure than at present. As she cannot afford to do much more than put the defences she now has into good order, and provide sufficient trained men and Volunteers to work those defences and to guard them, the colony must face the question of spending her money to the best advantage instead of throwing it heedlessly away. In the first instance, I have no hesitation in saying that to a great extent Volunteering has been kept alive by the fact of a Commandant coming out to the colony. The Volunteers are looking to their Commandant for help to extricate them from the mess into which they know they have drifted. They know as well as I do what their shortcomings are. They know their wants and their unsatisfied aspirations. They know that they have never been inspected in reality before. They know that they have worked hard to give me a favourable impression at that inspection, and they have found me ready and willing to give them all credit and to point out their deficiencies. To give them all credit would be hard. They have done their best under circumstances in which they have known that their best must be indifferent. Their officers are, en masse, unskilled, either as drill-instructors or in the art of commanding and leading men. Their drill-instructors supplied by the Government are generally out of date and inefficient. Their arms are useless, and often unsafe. They have suffered from the effects of bad ammunition. They have been ground down in the way of capitation. They, for the benefit of a few clothes-manufacturers, have been obliged to spend yearly large sums out of their insufficient' capitation. They have no haversacks, water-bottles, great-coats, valises, or means of carrying ammunition. They know this all too well; and yet their spirit has been such that they have held on and on, not knowing what the next year might bring forth, but hoping against hope that something might be done for them. It would be hard to find a better spirit than generally prevails amongst the men composing the Volunteer Forces. The officers are not as good as they might be, and the same may be said of the non-commissioned officers. In making this statement I am speaking generally. There are some remarkable exceptions, and, in reality, I can attach but small blame to those who are behindhand. How can it be expected that these men, working under the circumstances which prevail, should be efficient ? They have never had the chance of either example or instruction. It will be absolutely necessary that I shall have a free hand as regards inspection and command of the Volunteer Forces. It will be equally necessary that I shall be given a staff officer to work with me, and take in hand the instruction of officers throughout the colony. With only one such officer to help me I shall only with great difficulty be able to keep up to my work. It has been quite impossible for me to do more than I have done during the past eight months, and that work has been almost entirely inspections. Wlien I have the command of the Forces actually on my hands, which is absolutely essential for their well-being, the work will be more than I could face singlehanded. An officer who would be my staff officer, and who could help me in inspections and in the instruction of officers and non-commissioned officers, will be no more than I shall absolutely require, and I hope the Government will at once see their way to give me power to select such an officer. I have entered in my estimates the salary and allowances for which I can obtain such an officer, but I by no means lay down the rule that in future an equally good man will be obtained for the same money. I have gone very carefully into the requirements which I deem essential for the defence of the chief centres and coal port of Westport, and in my proposals have cut down the requirements of each centre to the lowest limits which will give the colony reasonable security. The strength of men per corps and number of men in each centre will be found to vary. That is accounted for by the local requirements of the individual centre. The individual corps numbers are based on what I think each locality can produce in good Volunteers; and I have adopted a maximum strength of in many cases the present minimum, for I deem it very much better to have fifty really efficient men than seventy-five indifferent men. With a good nucleus to work on it will be easy to increase the strength on emergency, while with bad material as a basis no satisfactory result would accrue from increasing its strength. Formerly this resulted in increasing the number of different corps, instead of being able to increase the number in each corps, as I propose. I have worked out my scheme so that the infantry corps belonging to each centre w T ill form % battalion, the country corps being affiliated thereto. In war time the men called up and kept under canvas would be drawn from the country corps, the town corps being in readiness to support them on emergency. It will be seen that I have done away with a considerable number of corps, as well as altered the strength of those remaining. I do not consider it right or necessary that the colcny should be called on to spend more money than she can reasonably afford, but I am of opinion that it is essential she shall have a certain number of men as efficient as they can be made for that money. To this end concentration is necessary. The corps situated at Naseby costs the country some £4 each time it is visited by the sergeant-instructor, who, by the way, is quite uselese when he gets there, as not only is he an incapable instructor, but a man who has been travelling by coach for ten hours over bad roads can hardly be expected to be much good at the end. IS'aseby is ten hours by coach from the nearest railway-station, and is thus not within range of proper instruction at reason--7 H—9.