" TERRIERS" IN TRAINING
BY the end of this month or the middle of the next, one hundred thousand lads will have been under arms. Had it not been for the general strike, which led to the cancellation of all camps between May 15th and July 15th, another 40,000 would have gone to camp• While it is regrettable that the full contingent of our line Territorial Army has not been able to receive its training, the results this year (achieved in face of con- siderable disorganization and difficulties) go far to prove how popular the camps are becoming and where a great extension should be possible in future years.
It is by no means an aggressive militarism that prompts us to encourage the Territorials. For another decade it would seem wellnigh impossible that Britain should be called upon to develop her military strength as she did in 1914. A large standing Army we do not require, nor should we encourage the idea of " preparing for the next war." All reasonable people, every man or woman who was in the battle lines of the last war, by land or sea, must pray that that hideous insanity shall riot recur. We have a breathing-spell ahead of us : religion, science, and common sense are all on our side, to say nothing of the League of. Nations.
, Millions of taxpayers in all countries have cursed the last conflict from the bottom of their hearts, and the pitiful legion of the maimed, who have an influence more profound than we know upon the present generation, are with us to remind us of our errors. We have seen too much of war and paid too dearly for the experience. But pacificism is another matter. We must work for peace in our time, but not by folding our arms. Air and sea power we must have, and a striking force, and last, but by no means least, there must be a reserve for home defence, to make it impossible or at any rate very dangerous for an enemy to land on our shores. It was the eager, grumbling, singing Territorial Army on the East Coast in 1914 that made possible that masterly movement of our veterans to confound Von Kluck and to force the crossings of the Marne, which first turned the tide of battle.
We still need the Territorials for the defence of England, and their training has benefits more precious than mere security. Safety is a material blessing, but the spirit of the camp is an even greater thing. Camping in England is becoming part of our educational system, as it should be. Every child should play in the open, every girl and boy should have access to field and forest ; similarly every . youth should come, for some period of his life, into the frienaship of the life of tents.
How well this writer remembers his first camp on Salisbury Plain ! The starry nights on outpost, the sunrise seen from between rows of sleeping horses, the ravening appetites at breakfasts, long days in saddle as centre-guide to a troop that closed in with eight horse power on either flank, the thunder of the Captain and the shouting of the sergeant-major. It is all the same now, no doubt : it is a good life, with its sing-songs, field days, arguments in the canteens and its memory inspires one through the working year, .
Now there are cinemas and Y.M.C.A.s and tanks, and air-raids as well, but, whatever changes, the joy of the nomad remains, The flap of canvas and the sough of wind through ropes are beautiful sounds and every boy and man alive should hear them and make them part of his life while he has yet time. Would that every man of leisure felt it his duty to give these weeks of the year for his country, and that every employer understood the direct and indirect benefits he would receive from giving his men every inducement 'to go to camp;
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