In the House of Lords on Monday Lord Meath appealed
to the Government to appoint a War Office and Board of Education Inter-Departmental or other Committee to con- sider and report on the best means of carrying into effect such compulsory universal military training as was recom- mended by Lord Roberts in the January number of the Nineteenth Century. The objections to compulsory service, he contended, did not apply to the training of lade in the use of the rifle, in which the Colonies were far ahead of us. In the course of the debate Lord Balfour of Burleigh very properly dwelt on the need of keeping the military aspect of the question apart from that which was concerned with the
physical development of our youths. The movement would be prejudiced if they let it go forth• to the country that it was only a part of national defence, or was even indirectly leading to compulsory service. He advocated physical drill as part of the school curriculum, but he was not prepared to associate it with War Office authority. This view was borne out by Lord Donoughmore, who replied on behalf of the Govern- ment. The offer of the War Office to inspect drill classes and to supply Morris tubes and ammunition at a cheap rate had been in force for three years, but out of six hundred and seventy-five schools, only one hundred and sixty-seven accepted in 1903, the reason of this indifference being attributed to a suspicion on the part of schoolmasters that the system was being used as the thin end of the wedge for ultimately introducing compulsory military drill into the schools.
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