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OKEHAMPTON EXPERIENCES, 1893 . 
should remember this, because if the Regiment will only say what they want in 
connection with the clinometer, I am sure Colonel Watkin will be able to produce 
an instrument which I believe myself will be superior to the one we have before 
us here. 
Colonel J. F. Maurice, c.b. —There are a large number of points in Major 
Hughes’ paper on which I should like to touch which I must skip for want of 
time, because there is one passage in particular in which he mentions my name, 
on which I want to say rather more than about others. 
The first paragraph about which I should like to say a word is the one in which 
Major Hughes says, “ If one cannot carry fuzed shell in the limber-boxes, 
some quicker method of fuzing them is necessary.” What I want to know, not, 
of course, from Major Hughes, is “Why cannot we carry fuzed shell in the 
limber-boxes ?” One battery did carry them for an entire season with perfect 
success; I should like to see every battery in the service with fuzed shell (with¬ 
out bursters in them) carried for an entire year. If at the end of that year we 
got through without any casualties, as I think we should, we might carry them 
for the following year with bursters, and after jthat always ; and I am sure we 
should gain enormously. 
I think everybody who has had any experience at Okehampton, at all events 
this year, will agree in that little matter about the change of “ cease firing— 
common, load and I only mention it as perhaps no one else may speak who has 
been at Okehampton this year. 
As to the next point, “ Reconnoitring Positions,” Major Hughes says that 
there is rather a dislike on the part of Brigade Division and Battery Commanders 
to leave their commands and advance well ahead to reconnoitre the next position. 
I am sure that anybody who has had the experience that some of us have had 
during the manoeuvres of this year will agree that for practical purposes that is 
one of the most important points that we have to attend to. I think, however, 
that the cause of any of us not appreciating it is simply the difficulty of getting 
throughout the country enough manoeuvring ground. I know on one occasion I 
was myself more than two miles, nearer three miles ahead of my batteries ; I 
was trying if possible to get the guns to a particular position, if our infantry 
were able to make it safe. Unfortunately the enemy’s infantry anticipated ours. 
It was only because of the early information I obtained of this fact because I 
was about three miles ahead of my batteries, that by galloping as hard as I could 
back to the batteries I could just get them into the next best position. Anybody 
who has practically tried it will agree that whoever is in independent command, 
whether Brigade Division Commander or Battery Commander, has simply to be 
as far ahead as he can possibly get to be able to reconnoitre what the enemy is 
doing. The difficulty that Major Hughes speaks of is a most natural one, and 
is produced almost entirely by drill as opposed to manoeuvres. As far as Brigade 
Division Commanders are concerned, I think a short experience of field manoeuvres 
soon cures them, and as they have under them Majors whom they know they can 
trust there is not the same temptation to cling to their commands. But the 
association of a Major with his battery is so personal and intimate a one that it 
is very natural that he should not like anyone else to nurse his own child for 
him. It takes, therefore, a good deal of experience of the practical necessity for 
being well ahead of their batteries to persuade them to leave to subalterns the 
guiding of a battery across a marsh or along a rocky hillside. It seems to me 
the more Majors can be encouraged to do this the better. There is no doubt of 
the advantage of the time gained by their being well ahead. Our subalterns if 
they only get the chance are quite fit to be trusted with the responsibility; I 
think that the more the subalterns are trusted with it the better they will do it. 
(Applause.) But that certainly does want pressing on every possible occasion. 
