THE " SPECTATOR " EXPERIMENT IN MILITIA TRAINING.
We gratefully acknowledge to-day the very generous sub- scription of £1,000 made . by Mr. W. Waldorf -Astor, to the Spectator Experiment in Militia Training. Mr. Astor, as our readers doubtless know, has always taken a keen interest in all that concerns the problem of national defence, and. some four years ago gave a sum of 210,000 for. the formation and encouragement of rifle clubs throughout the country,—a fund which has been administered with conspicuous success by the
National Rifle Association. Mr. Astor's munificent donation • enables us to refrain from any further appeal ,for subscrip- tions. It will allow us to do full justice to Colonel Pollock's scheme. Though we should have been just. able. to carry out the scheme on the original estimate of 23,500, it was evident that in many particulars we should have had to exercise an economy so strict that, though it might, not have, actually impaired the value of the experiment, it would have prevented several developments of an extremely useful kind which we are now able to undertake owing to the possession of so handsome a margin. For example, we shall be able to buy appliances which will be very useful for the complete training of the men in certain particulars. ,We shall be able to increase the prizes offered to the men for special efficiency. Further, we shall be able to make arrangements for the company to reassemble after an interval of nine months or a year for a field day, at which it will be possible to test Colonel Pollock's confident assurance that the men will have been so well grounded in their work that they will not have forgotten it, but will be still perfectly competent soldiers. This is a test to which we attach .very great importance. The bulk of the men assembled at Hounslow Barracks on Thursday. We hope next Saturday to be able to record that a good start has been made in the actual work of training. .
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