The Volunteer Training Corps are being trCught finally and splendidly
out of the doldrums. We recorded last week the acceptance by the War Office of the principle that Volunteer battalions should serve for a month at a time in France. Last Sunday at Malmesbury Colonel Steward, who had been sent by the War Office to inspect the Volunteer Training Corps there, said that the War Office proposed to employ Volunteers to guard waterworks, railways, and certain prisoners so as to release men of the Regular Army for more important services. The Central Association of Volunteer Training Corps has also received from Lord • Kitchener his compliments upon the work it has accomplished. "I would specially," he says, "refer • to the assistance given by the corps in recruiting for the Army generally." The bad old days of disappointment are indeed passing away. It will be remembered that one of the chief objections originally raised by the War Office to the Volunteer corps was that they would impede recruiting. That was the criticism also hurled from many quarters at the Spectator in the first days of the war when it proposed the raising of Home Guards or Volunteer Training Corps composed of men who were either over the military age or were not available for ordinary military service for some adequate and proved cause.
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