THE NEW VOLUNTEER REGULATIONS.
[TO TUB EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Your footnote to the letter of "H. K. S." in the Spectator of March 14th hits the nail on the bead. Is a man useless as a Volunteer because he cannot go to camp P The authorities assume that he is without going into the facts, but the correct- ness of their opinion is open to doubt. I have made inquiries among those still remaining in my company, and find that 40 per cent, of them cannot possibly bind themselves to attend camp even once in two years, and that consequently they will all have to leave at the end of next year unless the conditions are altered. Now out of the rest of my com- pany, who have all been -more or less regularly to camp, I cannot pick the -same number of men who can compete with
the non-campers in drill, shooting, mancenvring, or general • efficiency. The same state of things holds good in the other companies of the battalion more or less. The Regulations, then, simply mean that the salt of the company will be driven out and the inferior residue left. Lord Stanley in refusing to keep as a Volunteer a man who cannot give up working time as well as playtime is trying to get a new force under an old name. Unfortunately he has omitted to provide any machinery for bringing in the men, and the only suggestion offered is increased pay. The adoption of this scheme will only tend to drain the Militia of men who would otherwise join that force, and to attract into the Volunteers, not the men who should join, but those who should be in the Militia. If the authorities would only recognise the fact that attend- ance at camp does not necessarily turn every man into a good soldier, but that the value of camp depends entirely upon the state of efficiency that each man is in before he goes there, they would cancel this one fatal condition, and find that they had a larger and better force than they will have, as things
are, by January, 1905.—I am, Sir, &c., M. M.
[We trust that Volunteer officers who agree with our correspondent—and, unless we are greatly mistaken, this means 90 per cent. of all Volunteer officers—will take the trouble to collect statistics, and place, as they can if they chose so to do, an overwhelming case before the new Royal Commission on the Volunteers.—En. Spectator.]
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