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appointment unsatisfactory. They are also insufficient in number to keep up a proper system of discipline among the men, and this discipline further suffers from the regula tions as to plain clothes tending to make the soldiers take little pride in themselves as such, from the large percentage of married men, from the soldiers being called upon periodically to do police duty, and from the fact of enlistment being for no fixed period. Their technical value is impaired by the fact that their remuneration as third-, second-, or first-class gunners depends on length of service rather than on efficiency, and by the want of a sufficient number of properly qualified instructors.
To meet these defects the Commandant makes various definite suggestions, which appear to the Committee to be thoroughly sound, and which they therefore recommend to the Government of New Zealand for adoption. They desire to lay particular stress on the proposed method of appointing officers, and of keeping a proper number of qualified specialists among the men, on the necessity for further instructors for artillery and submarine mining, and on the advisability of enlisting men for fixed periods with the colours and with the Reserves.
4. The Commandant considers that the strength of the permanent forces should be increased so that the men who have to work the most important guns and their appliances, and to work and supervise the laying out of mine-fields may be thoroughly trained and available at a moment's notice. For this purpose he proposes an estab- lishment of 421 N.C.Os. and men for No. 1, and of 96 for No. 2 company. However desirable such an addition, which practically amounts to doubling the permanent force, may be, it must be recognized that it would add very largely to the military estimates of the Colony, and it seems to be for consideration whether a better result might not be obtained by putting the volunteers on a different basis as hereafter pro- posed, and thereby rendering them more efficient to reinforce and supplement the permanent corps.
5. The designations of No. 1 company and No. 2 company for these corps, and of the rank and file of the latter as "gunners" has little meaning; it would seem better if the two companies were called artillery and submarine mining companies, and the name gunner given up in the latter.
6. It would have been convenient if the Colonial Defence Committee had had referred to them the Confidential portion of the Commandant's Report, in which he has dealt with the state of the defences of the several ports.
7. The volunteers at present number 5,121 of all ranks, and have a very unsuitable organization, which it is not necessary to discuss, as the Commandant proposes to radically change it in a manner which entirely commends itself to the Committee. He reports that the spirit of the men is excellent, and feels sure that with more encourage- ment from the Government the men would make themselves thoroughly efficient. This encouragement, he thinks, should take the shape of an extra capitation grant to corps turning out in certain numbers to field parades, in addition to the Easter encampment.
The Colonial Defence Committee unhesitatingly recommend a more serious change than this. They propose that the whole volunteer force should be placed on a militia or partially-paid basis, like the troops in Canada and South Australia, and the bulk of the Queensland, New South Wales, and Victorian forces, and as has been recommended, after very careful and deliberate consideration, for the local army of the Cape by a strong Commission in that Colony.
The rate of payment adopted in South Australia is 51. per man, carrying with it the obligation of attending sufficient drills, &c., to secure efficiency. In Victoria it is 67. 10s., and in both Colonies no difficulty is experienced in filling the ranks with suitable men. At the former rate the present volunteer force in New Zealand would involve in pay an annual sum of somewhat over 25,000l., and if the further arrange- ment adopted in South Australia of maintaining a reserve of men who had served a certain term in the active force, and paying them for their reserve service at half the rate of service with the colours, were adopted, it would be possible to have a war establishment fully equal to the requirements of New Zealand at an expenditure probably not much in excess of that at present incurred.
Failing the adoption of the partially-paid system here strongly recommended, the Committee consider Colonel Penton's proposals for increasing the efficiency of the volunteer force to be satisfactory.
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