THE MILITARY FORCES OF QUEENSLAND. 
397 
“ 1 y to the mounted branches of the A. Battery must be available for 
" affording instruction to Field Artillery, Mounted Infantry, and other 
“ Mounted Corps.” 
And though there are so many and so varied duties to be performed, 
it must not be supposed that the work is scamped on that account. 
I did not personally see anything of the submarine mining work, but I 
had a look at the programme for drill and instruction, which had been 
drawn up in that connection by Major Byron, and which appeared to 
me, so far as my limited knowledge on the subject enabled me to judge, 
to be most full and comprehensive. As regards the permanent section, 
the horses were in good condition, and the drivers in a high state of effi¬ 
ciency : in the driving competition at the annual tournament their team 
did two clear drives out of three, and in the third they only shaved 
one post 
It is unfortunate that the men are only enlisted for three years, as they 
have to leave just as they have become thoroughly efficient soldiers; 
our service rules would perhaps be hardly suitable, but it is open to 
question whether it would not be an improvement to increase the period 
of service from three to five years ; the additional two years would hard¬ 
ly affect the question of subsequent employment, and it is unnecessary 
to dwell on the great value of the extra knowledge and experience 
which would be gained therein. 
Numerically, the battery is not nearly as strong as it should be, and 
it labours under a very serious disadvantage in the number of detach¬ 
ments which it has to supply, some at a great distance from head¬ 
quarters ; the result is that it is impossible to get together more than 
about fifty men on parade. This was the biggest muster that I had a 
chance of seeing, and though, as I have stated, they were as smart and 
as fine a set of men as one could wish to see, this only made it the more 
regrettable that such splendid possibilities should be to a great extent 
rendered abortive by the penny-wise policy of the Government in keep¬ 
ing down to such narrow limits the strength of a force on which their 
very existence may some day depend. 
In fact, to the impartial observer, the attitude of the Government to¬ 
wards its military defenders appears somewhat strange. It is easy, and 
therefore perhaps unfair, to criticize a, policy which may be rendered 
necessary in a young colony by considerations of economy, but one 
would suppose that, granted the necessity of maintaining a force at all, 
it would be worth while to devote sufficient funds to keep that force 
absolutely efficient. I don’t think that the firmest supporter of the 
Queensland Government could argue that this is done at present. To 
take one item only, the harness of the Field Artillery is in a very poor 
state ; things are condemned from year to year in the ordinary way, 
but as no notice ever seems to be taken of the proceedings of the con¬ 
demnation committee, matters are not bettered thereby, and, mean¬ 
while the harness is becoming more and more unserviceable; and as 
with this, so with other things. As the expense of the Force only 
amounts at present to about 2/6 per head of the population, as opposed 
to 20/-, which is approximately the cost per head in Great Britain, it 
cannot be urged that any very ruinous call is made on the country by the 
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