The Daily Mail of Monday publishes a sketch, which it
believes to be authentic, of the first of the coming military reforms. Every private is to have ten months' thorough training in campaigning work, including shooting, scouting, field engineering, and attacking and defending positions. Barrack work will be lightened, and in the time so gained the soldier will be changed into a skilled campaigner. To carry out this change and to allow of artillery practice the Govern- ment will acquire a great number of open spaces like Cannock Chase, Wolmer Forest, and Dartmoor. That seems an admirable improvement, and will be acceptable to the men, but what we wait for with anxiety is the plan for the more perfect training of officers, the dismissal of the incompetent, and the punishment, as in the Navy, of those who make costly blunders in the field.
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