VOLUNTEER TRAINING CORPS—A SUGGESTION. rTe Too Eons,. or me "SescrwrOa."1
5th—May I be permitted through your columns to put forward a suggestion for professional men who, like myself, are over military age and have had no previous military training P We have hitherto been consoling ourselves that, owing to our age, the services we can render to our country are limited to the dirties of the Special Constabulary, Red Cross, and refugee work. With the summer holidays approaching, the question now arises What shall we do•for a holiday P A large number of men will, I think, decline to take "holidays as usual," and my suggestion is that a camp should be formed in some convenient locality where men who, for business reasons, or because they are special constables, have been unable to join the Central Volunteer Training Corps, may be afforded an opportunity of learning the work of a soldier, and may be thoroughly drilled for a period varying from one to two months, as business engagements permit, A recruit would probably be able, in a month of continuous military training, to acquire as much knowledge of drill and military service as he would have done from occasional evening and week- end attendance° at the drills of the Central Volunteer Training Corps. In the first instance it might not be advis. able, or even practicable, to put a large number of untrained middle-aged men under canvas, but with practically every seaside resort on the East Coast bereft of its visitors, and likely to remain so during the continuance of the war, the question of accommodation does not really present any diffi- culty. Men could be billeted out in East Coast towns just as "Kitohener's Army" has been billeted in different parts of England all the winter, and the men to whom my suggestion will appeal are not likely to be deterred from spending their holidays in this way merely because their board and lodging is going to cost them 22 per week per head. I believe there are a large number of men over forty years age, both married
and single, who would be ready to qualify now and take com- missions later whenever their services may be really required, although it would be an injustice to ask or expect them to give up their businesses and undertake the necessary training until the shirkers of military age have first been called out.
Time will scarcely permit a new organization to be started before the holidays, and it must, therefore, I think, be left to one of the existing battalions of the Central Volunteer Train- ing Corps to transfer its headquarters to a seaside resort for, say, August and September, and open its doors for temporary recruits. Their own members would probably form a nucleus and be ready to train for a portion of their holidays, and by spreading the period for training out over two months every one who could arrange his holiday during that time would have a chance of doing a month's tmining.—I am, Sir, do.,
32 Essex Street, Strand, W.C. W. ROWLAND FISHER.
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