The Birmingham Rifle Club in a letter to Mr. Chamberlain
recently raised the question of rifle licenses. They suggest that free licenses should be issued to members of rifle clubs on their undertaking to use their rifles at the ranges only or in the service for home defence if called upon. Mr. Cham- berlain, in reply, urges the difficulty of making exceptions, and states that under the arrangements made between the War Office and the National Rifle Association "the exemp- tion [i.e., from licenses] should be confined to rifles belonging to the clubs." That the Government has no desire to put obstacles in the way of rifle clubs and rifle-shooting we are quite sure ; but we think they will find, if the matter is care- fully looked into, that the present arrangements are far from satisfactory. At present, if a man wants to become a rifle shot, he must either pay 108. a year or else belong to a rifle club affiliated to the National Rifle Association. But this affiliation provision, though it seems reasonable, in practice stops the formation of small village clubs. Those who form such small bodies frequently do not know to whom to apply, and when they do apply, are not always visible to the National Rifle Association, which probably thinks it has more valuable work to do than to bother about village clubs.—We know of a small country club which applied to be affiliated nearly three months ago, and has as yet only received a polite acknowledgment of its application.
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