As to the pension proposal, Lord Lansdowne, we think, misunderstood
the Duke of Bedford. At any rate, his answer does not in the least meet our own suggestion. We want to see, in addition to the present Army Reserve and the new real Militia Reserve, a general Home Defence Reserve formed out of all the trained men in the country, in which all men who have served a certain number of years in the Army, Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers shall be able to enter, and in which their names shall be kept inscribed up till the age of sixty. Any "trained man" whose name shall have been on the Home Defence Reserve lists continuously till sixty shall thereupon receive an old-age pension of 7s. a week. While on the lists he 'shall also receive a small annual gratuity given on reporting himself once a year at the military depot to which he is attached. No doubt the plan would cost something, but it would enable the War Office to keep in touch with the bulk of the trained men of the nation, and would also provide old-age pensions for a class of men to whom the community is specially beholden, and whom it should be specially anxious to keep from any chance of getting into the workhouse.
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