In the Commons the whole of Tuesday was devoted to
the discussion of the Territorial Forces Bill. Sir Charles Bilks moved an ameudnient to Clause I. (which establishes the County Associations) to retain the old names of the Auxiliary Forces, but this was rejected by 212 votes to 94. Mr. Haldane, while refusing to give way on the point of nomenclature, approved of the suggestion that the new Territorial Force should have a special civil represen- tative at the War Office. For the present, however, he proposed to look after the organisation himself. The Secretary for War also declined to accept Mr. F. E. Smith's amendment providing for the retention of the Militia in its present form, on the ground that it was "a decadent force, plundered at one end by the Regulars, and pillaged at the other by the Volun- teers?' It would be far better to have third battalions, as be proposed, to make good the waste of war.
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