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Engineers.

Infantry.

4

permanent force on other duties than those for which they are maintained and trained at a large cost is obvious.

The measures which the Officer Commanding the artillery proposes in order to check desertion from this force (Appendix C, paragraph 12) are recommended for adoption.

An almost identical complaint to the one he makes on the subject of plain clothes has been put forward in the last Annual Report of the Commandant in New Zealand. There seem to be grave objections to allowing soldiers to wear plain clothes except when on furlough away from their own stations.

6. The total peace establishment of the engineer companies, exclusive of Staff, is 302, of which 26 are permanent. This bears a fair proportion to the 408 required on mobilization.

At present the two main engineer requirements, according to the Commandant, are an officer of Royal Engineers for supervision (paragraphs 20, 37, 42 to 44), and a new submarine mining steamer (paragraph 214). With regard to the former, it seems strange to the Committee that in so technical a branch as submarine mining, and in one which plays so important a part in the defence of the Australian ports, none of the Colonies should think it desirable to obtain the supervision of an officer who has followed closely its recent developments. As, however, the Committee have already made a definite recommendation on the matter in their Remarks, dated 21st November, 1895, on the Report of the 1894 Federal Military Conference, and have repeated this recommendation in various subsequent papers, they do not propose to discuss it further. The suggestion of the Commandant (paragraph 43) that the submarine defences of New South Wales should be inspected biennially by an officer of Royal Engineers from India does not appear to them a very satisfactory way of meeting the requirements of the case.

It is scarcely necessary for the Committee to endorse the Commandant's state- ment that a reliable and efficient submarine mining steamer is necessary to insure the mine-field at Port Jackson being efficiently and promptly laid when required.

7. The infantry of the Colony consists of a brigade of partially-paid troops, with peace and war establishment, according to the latest Returns of Resources, of 2,570 and 4,292 respectively, and of volunteer corps, which numbered, at the date of the Commandant's Report (paragraph 62), 2,463 of all ranks, but almost all of whom have been recently raised.

Dealing first with the partially-paid troops, it is observed that they are organized in four battalions each of ten companies, and that though the Commandant states (paragraph 45) that this organization would be difficult to improve upon, yet he immediately afterwards (paragraph 46) remarks on the small strength-sixty-of the companies as an obstacle to satisfactorily carrying out company drill, and proposes (paragraph 47), as a partial remedy to this, that the strength of each company should be raised by ten men.

In the absence of any reasons given by the Commandant, it is difficult to see what advantage a ten-company battalion has over one of eight companies, as in the Imperial service, while the latter arrangement obviously gives, with the same number of men per battalion, stronger companies with smaller expenditure on officers and N.C.Os. As it is, the English company, with 3 officers and 96 of other ranks in peace, and 3 officers and 114 of other ranks in war, has a far greater proportion of officers to men than obtains in any Continental army; a larger proportion in Australia is neither necessary nor economical, except in so far as it may be required in peace to provide for the augmentation in the strength of units which will occur on mobilization. If the proposed increase of 100 men per battalion is accepted, there will be in each, in addition to regimental staff and officers, 670 N.C.Os. and men per battalion. If these were organized in eight companies, with three officers per company, as at present, the proportion of officers in peace would be still as great as three to eighty-four, while the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient number of men together for useful company training would be much lessened. It may, indeed, for territorial or other local reasons, be advisable to retain the ten company organization, but the matter seems worthy of the careful attention of the Commandant.

The question of musketry training, both for the infantry and mounted infantry, is one of very great importance. To carry out the course for infantry-trained soldiers as laid down in the Imperial "Musketry Regulations, 1898," requires eight days, exclu- sive of two days' preliminary drill, and it seems quite impossible that in New South

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