Mr. George Wyndham, addressing a meeting at Derby on Monday,
spoke at length on the subject of military defence. He said that they were no longer content that the Home Army should serve merely as a recruiting office and an elementary school for the Army abroad ; they demanded that it should also receive secondary education itself at home. After pointing out the advantages enjoyed by the Navy— conditions of service that attracted a sufficient number of officers and men of a suitable stamp, and facilitiestfor yearly manceuvres—he dismissed Dr. Conan Doyle's scheme as im- practicable, as it would mean the addition of one hundred thousand men to the establishment. The existing plan had worked very well, but the peace training of the Home Army was hampered by material and moral impediments. The difficulties to be faced were higher training for the Home Army, recruiting, a proper provision for small wars, and an adequate reserve of officers; and Mr. Wyndham thought that a solution might be found in the plan propounded by William Pitt in 1804, in which Pitt not only forestalled the territorial system of linked battalions, but wished to add "a battalion of reserve, formed in each district, appropriated for the reception of all the surplus men, together with those- who, either from age or size, were not judged capable of active service." The rudiment of such a reserve was to be found in the depot, and if the depots were made centres of territorial sentiment, the second battalions would be left free to prac-
tise the higher branches of their profession and fit to take part in small wars.
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