25 AUGUST 1906, Page 14

THE SHORT-SERVICE SYSTEM.

[To THE EDITOR Or TRW SPROTATOR."]

SIR,—" A Believer in Short Service" in your last number talks of the "old system inaugurated by Lord Cardwell, of seven years with the colours and five years with the Reserve." Will you allow me to reply that this system was adopted long after Lord Cardwell's day P Lord Cardwell's system was six years with the colours and six with the Reserve. All he wanted was to keep men with the colours sufficiently long to enable him to find the annual drafts for Indian and Colonial servios. These being found, he would, no doubt, have been ready to pass into the Reserve such men of over three years' service as could have been spared, and who were willing to join it.—I am, Sir, 8r.e., A BELIEVER IN CA.RDWELL.