The official answer is that the War Office have quite
as =my rifles—they will not state the number—as they can use, and that it would be quite useless to arm a mob of untrained men with rifles. That would be a perfectly sound answer if the Government were determined never to improvise troops on a midden emergency. Yet, as we have said, every one knows that such improvisation would in fact take place at a crisis just as it took place during the South African War. What makes the matter so serious is that, though you can improvise men, you cannot improvise rifles. Even though we had every small-arms factory in the country working day and night and seven days a week, it would take more than a year, possibly two years, to produce half-a-million rifles. If the Territorial Reserve is formed, the work will, we trust, be entrusted to the County Associations.
Previous page
