In October 1864 the Government decided to reduce the numbers in the Colonial Defence Force to 75 with three units of 25 members each in Wellington, Hawkes Bay and Taranaki. By this time there were about 10,000 British Imperial troops in New Zealand, supplemented by about as many New Zealand volunteer and militia forces. There were calls, particularly from South Island papers, for the British Imperial troops to be replaced by local forces. Parliamentary debates in late 1864 also supported this view, especially as the cost of maintaining the Imperial troops was becoming a greater financial burden on the colony.