The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-10 00:00:00

THE VOLUNTEERS

The annual meeting of the South Middlesex Rifle Volun-
teers took place on Saturday evening at the headquarters,
Beaufort House, Walham-green ; Lieutenant-Colonel
Viscount Ranelagh in the chair.
Viscount RANELAGH said that knowing the deep in-
terest the regiment took in him and he in them, he was
desirous to call their attention to a great public question,
In which he was personally concerned, by the criticisms in
the public press on him for having asserted that the volun-
teer force as it at present existed was " a mere sham."
He was not only now attacked by the press, but by com-
manding officers as well as the press, for having said that
the volunteer force collectively was a sham : and it was
attempted to be put upon him that he had insinuated that
the volunteers individually were a sham. Now, those who
made that assertion well knew the untruthfulness of the
statement. There was no man in the 'volunteer service
who bad greater experience of what volunteers individually
were made of ; and whether for skill, for zeal, for courage,
or for endurance, there were no men in her Majesty's
service who wera superior to the volunteers of this country.
But what he described as a " sham " was, that they
were, as at present constituted and organised, as a
whole, the mere framework, and wanted all the
essentials of an army in the field. That was his
point, and not that the volunteers were cowards,
and that they were individually a " sham." But the War
Office would not learn. He had been anxious to improve,
not only the volunteers as a force, but he believed he had
done something even to improve the efficiency of the regular
army. When in France he saw that the French soldiers
had a very superior arm to the English army. He made
a collection of those arms, and brought them over. He did
not send-them to the War Office authorities, where he knew
they would bek4)t tilt they got rusty ; buthe ha,d them tried
at that place, and got the representatives of the public
press to attend, and the result was that public opinion
was brought to bear, and by that means the English army
were supplied with Enfield rifles much sooner than they
otherwise would have been. His object was to serve

nis country in securing the proper organisation and
efficiency of the volunteer' force, and it was hard he
thould be attacked by his brother volunteer officers for so

doing. First there was Lord Elcho, with his puffing and
popularity-seeking telegram to his corps on the night of
its annual prize meeting. There was no argument in that.
Then he had to contend with some smaller fry in the
person of Captain Templar, who, after perverting entirely
what he (Lord ,Itanelagh) had said, suggested that he
'Lord Ranelagh) should retire from the force. He could
.ell Captain Templar that it would require advice from a
ouch higher quarter, and much stronger arguments than
ie had used to compel him (Lord Ranelagh) to do that.
ant what he had desired to shew was, that what the volun-
teer service wanted to make it efficient was more perfect
organisation, so as to enable it if called upon to take
the field en masse efficiently. But if, as the War Office
had lately shewn, it was unable to grapple with small things,
how was it possible that it could do so with large? Let
them look, for instance, at the recent Hounslow case, for
which a commissary-general had been dismissed. Let
them also look at the case of the recent removal of
Colonel Erskine. It was a fact that that gallant officer
had not heard of his removal until informed of it by a Pri-
rate friend, and when he went to the War Office to see, he
'ound he was no longer Inspector-General of Volunteers.
;pen representations being made, however, he was rein-
scated, and he was now to be found in the Army List as
General Commanding Military Train, and Inspector-
General of Volunteers into the bargain. Therefore, he
said, if the War-office authorities made these messes in
these small matters, how would they be able, without
some previous and proper organisation, to deal with
200,000 men in the field, or required to be in the field ?
Why, he (Lord Ranelagh) believed that the sad lessons of
Sadowa and Bull's Run would be repeated. If they wanted
an example of excellence in organisation, let them go to
Germany, where by the beat of the drum and the sound of
the bugle an army was turned out which in six days beat
and all but annihilated the army of that which had been
looked upon as one of the greatest military nations in the
world. It had been said that the volunteer force should be
attached to that of the army, but the volunteers would not
carry packs, nor would the Prussians, who had them car-
ried in carts. After contending that the staff attached to
the regular army was only barely sufficient for that ser-
vice, that even the militia could only be supplied by the
old pensioners and men of that stamp on the staff, and
that therefore it was absolutely indispensable to efficiency
that the volunteer service should have an independent and
properly-organised staff of its own, he (Lord Ranelagh)
threw this down as a second gauntlet necessary, in his
opinion, to secure the complete and efficient organisation
of the volunteer force. The noble chairman, after some
further observations explaining his views, concluded his
remarks amid several rounds of cheering.

FALSE IMPRISONUENT OF A REPORTER. —An
action for damages (21,000 was tried last week in the
Court of Common Pleas, Dublin, brought by Mr.
Matthew Tracy, a reporter of the Cork Herald, against
Mr. Daniel J. Cruice, resident magistrate at Killarney, for
false imprisonment. Mr. Tracy, during the Fenian excite-
ment of last winter, when representing his paper in Kil-
larney, presented a telegram at the telegraph office, there
to be sent to Cork, in the words, " Rumoured disaffection
in the troops. An officer heard civilians and men singing
seditious songs. Civilians removed by police. Military
sent to quarters. Fourteen soldiers missing. Wires cut
last night at Clonmahon." The telegraph clerk wished to
leave out the word " disaffection." The plaintiff refused.
On being brought before the magistrates and asked his
authority for the statements he wished to publish, be also
refused to give it. In consequence he was placed in gaol,
where he lay for three days, and was three times searched.
Ultimately Mr. Tracy was released on giving bail.
The charge on which he was arrested was
that of having " written and published a false and
malicious libel on certain of her Majesty's troops at Kil-
larney._rst It was contended that if Mr. Tracy had in the
from
rs),
em v
e be e w
oul
first instancepriestt:,rindicated the source of his information (he
lug
hotel,eded.
"and
two brother
metthe d
have in
ben arrested.
The case c7clt.A. some interest -ain°military' me
n,
and
and General Sir AA. Horsford, who was in command of
the Killarney troops at the time, on being exa-
mined, deposed that he haA then in the county of Kerry
1,503 troops of all arms, end on no occ
on v
report made to him of men being missing from
there a
duty
,t
jJining with civilians in seditious songs ; nor hadheityeve
or
found it necessary to order men to quarters. He heard of
the telegram which was about to be sent to Cork by Mr.
Tracy, and on making inquiries immediately ascertained
that the rumours of disaffection among the troops were
totally unfounded. It was suggested in defence that the
smallest amount could be awarded by a jury as
damages would fully satisfy the ends of justice. A verdict
for MO was returned