A CORPS OF COUNTY GUIDES.
[To Tax EDITOR OF THY “SPECTATOR."1
have watched with much interest the useful corre- spondence which has been going on in your columns on the subject of National Scouts and Guides. You are doubtless aware that attached to the 4th Volunteer Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment there is a company of mounted infantry, whicl was inaugurated for the same purpose as the proposed National Scouts; and perhaps I may be permitted to point out how the movement begun in the New Forest might be enlarged and improved so as to cover large portions of England. This can no doubt be successfully accomplished by cyclists on good roads, but where they have to explore, or make themselves conversant with, the old pack-horse roads, as you suggest in your editorial note, they would be more useful if mounted on horses or ponies. There are also large un- cultivated portions of Hampshire, Devonshire, Somerset, shire, and Cornwall, as well as the Lake and Border Districts, where there are no roads, and a bicycle would only be an encumbrance if the scouts are to be of assistance to commanding officers in selecting strong positions or in attack- ing those of the enemy. In the case of the company of New Forest Scouts, their operations are much hampered because at every available meeting their time is entirely taken up with foot drill, formation drill, details of the adjustment of cumber- some saddlery, and so on ; thus the real business of learning the country, map-making, map-reading, making road reports, and cultivating powers of observation is unavoidably thrust to the wall. If a form of training in these matters could be substituted, in which men were taught the really practical work for which scouts should be used, I feel sure that far more interest would be evinced, and that a really efficient and in- telligent force of scouts could be raised in most counties or dis- tricts in England, and they could be mounted either on horses, ponies, or bicycles, as the needs of the district might require. Such a scheme of scouting has been prepared and is being taught at Hounslow in the provisional regiment of Hussars, and if the authorities would sanction the formation of bodies of scouts who might work on the lines laid down in that regiment in the scouting classes, I feel confident that the project would be successful. But it must be borne in mind that men have neither the time nor the inclination to join our scouts if they are to be merely a body of men who are kept solely for the purpose of learning foot drill, which they rarely get the chance of practising or adapting to mounted or bicycle requirements, and which, even if they had, would be of little or no value in the real work which they joined to perform. It is to be hoped that the subject so ably discussed in your columns may not be allowed to drop, and I would suggest an influential Committee being formed to elaborate a scheme and to lay it before the authorities as a useful adjunct to our home defence, as well as in South Africa and our other [Lord Arthur Cecil's point is a most important one. Those who have seen the New Forest Mounted Infantry on their hardy ponies must have realised what admirable material exists for irregular mounted scouts even in the Southern Counties. We agree with our correspondent that the men want an appropriate training and organisation, and that they do not always get it under existing conditions. We trust that Lord Arthur Cecil will offer to give evidence on mounted Guides before the Royal Commission on the Militia and Volunteers.—ED. Spectator.]
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