[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR. "]
Srn,—In the strenuous opposition which is certain to meet Mr. Arnold-Forster's proposals for the reduction of the Volunteers, both within and without the House of Commons, the following facts will, I trust, not be lost sight of ;—
(1) The present cost of the Volunteer Force, with a strength of, roughly, two hundred and fifty thousand men, is one halfpenny in the pound on the Income-tax.
(2) Another tenth of a penny would enormously increase the military value of the whole Force by providing them with trans- port, divisional staffs, &c. The increase of the Volunteer Vote by this amount would have no appreciable effect upon the Budget, and the proposal to reduce numbers in order to spend the money thus saved upon the remainder is therefore quite unnecessary.
(3) The individual Volunteer costs the country £5, the indi- vidual Regular £90, per annum. I have never heard it stated that one Regular is a match for eighteen Volunteers in the field.
(4) It is true that the Committee of Defence has done its best to make invasion impossible by declaring it to be so, but probably the foreigner has not the same respect for the declarations of this august body as it seems to have itself.
(5) At the present time, when the victories of Japan aro being won pro-eminently by superiority of numbers, and an Island Empire fighting for its existence finds itself obliged to put five
hundred thousand men into the field, it is folly to treat any man who will serve his country if it will spend £5 a year on him as
"redundant," and to forget that the war in South Africa was won by an army over two-fifths of which was drawn from what would, if their services were appreciated, be a practically inexhaustible reservoir of man, the Auxiliary Forces of the Empire.
(6) The essence of his worth as a fighting man is the superior intelligence and superior physique of the Volunteer. But all the recent attempts to make the Volunteers more "efficient "—i.e., to make greater demands on their time—have resulted only in driving out of the ranks the busiest, and hence the superior, men. The battalions which are most " efficient " to the military cyo are for the most part composed of mon who should be Militia- men, and where the Volunteers aro strongest the Militia is always weakest. The cry for more "efficient" men at tho expense —I am, Sir, &c., VOLUNTEER FIELD OFFICER.
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