Major Morrison in a recent letter said "there is no need for the guard to be drilled and made into military body," and here I join direct issue with him, and I have given above alist of duties which could only be efficiently performed by men " drilled and made into military body." Moreover, it won't do to wait until the danger is upon us and then start in to improvise.
at never pays with anything, and least of all with military operations. To insure the promptness which is half the batt hing must be in working order, in outline at least, long before the necessity arises. Men must t. told off for their various duties and officers instructed in theirs, ea that if the time comes everyone may he all there." The organisation must be a strictly military one and drilled sufficiently for what it has to As regards this drill, however, the very smallest amount which will enable men to march in column and form into line, carry their weapons loaded and discharge them when necessary without danger to their comrades, is amply sufficient. Presupposing s knowledge of the A B C of drill, which everyone who has ever served has acquired, the cavalry column of fours and the cavalry front form" provides all the marching drill necessary, and has the advantage of being so simple that it can be learnt in a few minutes and cannot very well over be forgotten. The amount of drill in ordinary times would he practically nil. I should think three parades a year might be called, and attendance at any one of them constitute an "efficient" home-guardsman, So long as movements were Festricted to the simple ones I have mentioned they are so easy to learn, so hard to forget, and so little dependent on any one individual that practice in them is almost unnecessary. jos serious trouble here would almost certainly be preceded by a feeling of uneasiness and then two or three extra drills would brush the guard up to all the requisite extent. Then there ig the question of uniform. Personally, I don't see any necessity for uniform; the Home Guard would be an essentially working body and not for show, and in a place like this except as an ornament uniform is of no great importance. In Europe or America it is different; for there it is the distinguishing mark of a soldier and an enemy would ordinarily leave anyone alone who did not wear it, whilst, on the other hand, a person in plain clothes who committed an act of hostility would be hanged offhand. Here, of course, whether a man wore uniform or not would not make the slightest difference in the treatment he received. In the matter of arms, I plump for the common "scatter gun" of which almost everybody possesses a specimen, and when I call to the reader's mind the fect that the battles of the first half of the century were fought with muskets very inferior to the modern fowling piece; that until breech-loading rifles were introduced such sportsmen as Sir Gordon Cumming and Sir Samuel Baker preferred smooth bores for close work with big game because of their handiness; and that just about twenty years ago the Ashantees armed with emocth bores and buckshot made it fairly hot for British soldiers, I think he will allow I have history aa! well as common sense on my side. There are very sufficient objections to handing over rifles to the care of men who are not constantly using them, whilst storing them at the rendezvous is all right, as far as it} goes, but fails to provide the protection of weapon whiler getting there, a time when perhaps it may be most wanted. Apart altogether from that, to my mind shot guns re actually better weapons for dealing with an ordinary mob than rifles, for they are easier handled by men not in constant practice and they would be much more readily used. Most people would send "wire A" or charge of "'S.S.G." into crowd a good deal more cheerfully than a rifle bullet which would kill whomever ithit. A shot gun is not too deadly but just deadly enough" and here I may mention that the commission of enquiry into the death of certain rioters who were shot down by the soldiers in England last year actually suggested that if it were posible it would be desirable to provide buck-of civil disturbance. Of course a eliot gua shot instead of bullets for the suppression has not a bayonet but I expect clubbed would be quite formidable enough for all practical purposes. The Yorkshireman in Soldiers Three," as you know, preferred the butt in a scrimmage By the way the organisation by districts could not very well be improved upon, for the work in them commences at once and any more centralized system therefore means loss of time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.