An interview with. General Edwards.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 375, 9 November 1889, Page 3

An interview with. General Edwards.

General Edwarda was interviewed at Christchurch by a representative of the Lyttelton Times, but he did not vouch his interviewer a great deal of information. Some raference was, however, made to the danger of invasion, and we make the following extract from this part of the interview :— The general talks of the danger of having 5000 men landed in some part of these islands 5000 men 1 l ls it possible to move a force that sice sneb a distance?’ * Nothing easier. Two steamers of tbe Messageries Maritimes would carry that number of men round the world on a roving picnic for as long as thi y chose,’ I ventured to point out that even Messageries steamers may find it hard >o ercape the vigilance of our cruisere. Whereupon it begins to appear that my compre tension has been imperfect hitherto. 'Don't you see,' says the general, 'that th* battle for these colonies will be fought not here or there in the Pacific, but in the English Channel? Our fleet hae been allowed to fall behind a little. The faot is it may not be a match for the combination •W two Powers like France and Russia. In » shat case It is quite possible that wo may have a disaster in the Channel. If we do, aobody Can have any idea of what may pot happen. Anything may happen. The whole face of the colonial world may be changed in • few weeks, I now see the ciroumstanoee under which 5000 men may be expected on our shores, I understand the great fact ot the sitnation is that to heave 5000 men and all their works, guns, drums, trumpets, ammunition, proclamations of material law into the sea is not quite the easiest thing in the world. But lam ‘far from giving aWay, There are the forts. I mention the forts at the chief porte, the guns therein, the Moncrieff carriages, the steel shields, the submarine mines, the eleotrid lights, the deadly marksmanship in fhe Permanent Artillery, and the very straight shooting of the navels—which last, I omit to say, are things pertaining to the distant future, The General eyes me like • chess player who calmly watches a brilliant antagonist rushing on to his fate. Mentally he salutes the forts and their

mechanical appliances, likewise their defenders, whom he is ready to admit are the bravest of the brave since the days of the great Bayard himself; AU this he indicates With a small ware of his head and a alight euri of 'his busy eyebrows) and then I listen to the calm exnressiop of the facta. The 5000 men Would land away from the fort*. Their plan would be to march on the towns defended by the forts, to take the fpwns and get the forts thrown in, when th* ships would steam quietly in. * Have you got anything to stop the march cf 5000 under these cirenmetancee ? ’ ashed the general. And when I was for some lime silent he kindly reduced the number, •nd asked me if we had anything to stop 8000 men,' ail armed with the last and best infantry weapon, the best artillery arms, machine guns of aU kinds, weU supplied with every invention of war, disciplined to perfection; and applied in • way to leave nothing ft be desired?' 'll The General patwed for a reply. I thought s of our few hundreds here and there, our extinct country corps, our handful of ancient •rtillery pieces, the excellent but obsolpte Bald’ r (once the queen of weapons) our short supply of MaiouisiUon. Thinking of these thluxs J remained silent. It wm no us* to Ml th* General that w* had a di*eipU«*d

host ready to start up out if the ground whenever the coast line should be insulted by the tramp of a foieign foe. He is not the sort that believes'such tales; neither is he of tho kind that is put off with any explanation that anybody chooses to make. Happy thought. The general will be able to answer his question for himself when he has been through the colony. I jay as much frankly, and we pass to another branch of the subject.