Mr. Brodrick's main line of argument was that we had
got a great number of available forces, but that they wanted organisation, and that this necessary organisation they would receive under his scheme. It is for this reason that the army- corps system is adopted. That will allow decentralisation and localisation, not merely as regards men but as regards money. In future a general will be able to authorise the purchase of a new broomstick without a long correspond- ence with Pall Mall. Thoroughly sound was all that Mr. Brodrick had to say in regard to the recruiting problem, while his figures as to the supply of men were moat remarkable. Last year, though we raised twelve thousand men for Yeomanry and other special corps, we got forty-six thousand ordinary recruits. In the first four months of this year, though we raised twenty-five thousand Yeomen, we have obtained sixteen thousand recruits,— which is at the rate of forty-eight thousand a year. Mr. Brodrick, in dealing with the Yeomamy, mentioned an interesting fact in support of the view that the Yeomanry must be mounted infantry rather than cavalry. "I may tell the House," he said, "that the Commander-in-Chief and a body of officers only yesterday rode over a considerable portion of the country which might have to be defended in the neighbourhood of London, and they decided—I believe without a single dissentient voice—that there was not a part of the twenty-seven miles they travelled over in which cavalry, as cavalry, could possibly act; whereas mounted troops, armed and drilled as it is proposed to drill and arm the new Yeomanry, would be invaluable."
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