me since the date of the inception of the force
in 1859-60, when, with others, I used to drill four hours a day for months together. May I, then, be allowed to express the opinion that no truer words could have been written, no sounder policy could be laid down, than are set forth in the article on "The End of the Crisis, and its Military Lessons," in last week's
Spectator ? I venture to reproduce the lines which, as it seems to me, have irresistible force, resting, as I believe they
do, on unassailable fact :— "If the British people allow the Volunteers to be
reduced they will deserve any fate that may overtake them Instead of applying sham tests of efficiency to the Volunteers, the real object of which is not so much to produce efficiency as to reduce numbers, let us frankly accept a low standard in training, though not in physique. Let us, that is,
increase their number Let us, in a word, not destroy, but improve the machinery which we now possess for improvising an extra army in a great national emergency,—an emergency such as that which so nearly overtook us two weeks ago."
These are words which ought to be written up in letters of
gold in every public ball, and driven home to the mind of every Member of the Legislature, nay, of every citizen who cares for the safety of these islands and the welfare of the Empire. Many years ago a cotton planter of Texas, who had ridden with the Confederate cavalry against the troopers of the North, told me that his experience was that four months of
training were sufficient to make Volunteer horsemen fit for the field. How much more quickly, then, could men on foot be made ready to move in trained bodies against the foe ? Our Volunteers alone need practical sympathy and encourage- ment, a supply of properly instructed officers and capable leaders, to develop swiftly into an effective force, whose
numbers and esprit de corps should once for all allay appre- hension of a successful descent on the shores of this country.
As it is, Volunteer teams outshoot teams of the Regular Army, though the force, like the Regulars, is still absurdly crippled in ammunition and the means of practice at the F. E. BAINES, THE DOGGER BANK INCIDENT.
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