On Friday week at Newcastle Mr. Haldane in presenting prizes
to the Volunteer Battalion of the Northumberland F usiliers made an important speech on Army policy. He desired, he said, to popularise the conception of a nation in arms, since such a conception was the only real counteractive to militarism. No army could be strong which was not based on the people. The British military problem was a peculiar one, and though much could and should be learned from the study of other systems, yet in the last resort we must solve it on purely British lines. Our main concern must be with the Auxiliary Forces, who provided the material for expansion, and who must be given a training and organisa- tion to fit them for the task. "We look to the expansion of our Volunteer Forces just as on the Continent they look to conscription."
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