A HOME DEFENCE LEAGUE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Six,—I have been watching your columns every week ex- pecting to find some keen outward and visible response to Mr. Champneys' suggestion in your issue of January 13th. He, as I understand, proposed that a society should be formed to concern itself with the organisation and development of our military resources, with special reference to home defence, in much the same way that the Navy League concerns itself with our naval well-being. Surely every indication points to the urgent need for and utility of combined private effort of this description. Even assuming that the Government
does employ adequate measures in dealing with the present situation, there is reason to fear that, once this war has ended, more or less happily, we shall, as a nation, go comfortably to sleep again in time for a still ruder awakening. A "Home Defence League" should prove of permanent service in keep- ing officialdom up to the mark. Will not some of the men of position and expert knowledge, whose names have been prominent of late—I refer in particular to Mr. H. 0. Arnold- Forster, Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, Lord Wantage, and Lord Wemyss, besides others—will not some of these form them- selves into a small central committee and inaugurate an association of the kind ? They would meet with overwhelm-
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