7 FEBRUARY 1914, Page 3

That every one of the objects thus enumerated is worthy

we do not doubt, and we most sincerely hope that the Scouts will get their quarter of a million. But though we think the objects good per se, we hope we may be able, without seeming hostile or critical even in the minutest degree, to give a warning against the danger of what, to borrow an analogy from the commercial world, we may callamoral overtrading. Move- ments, like men or bridges, are only capable of bearing a certain amount of strain, and we are genuinely afraid of the Scout movement getting overweighted and of the job becoming too big for any one body of men to manage. To preach con- centration is not to decry. The Scout movement is too precious to the nation to be endangered by excess, even excess in welldoing.