LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE WAR OFFICE AND THE VOLUNTEERS.
[To THE Einem OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The whole nation is in your debt for the vigorous steps you are taking to restore the War Office to a condition of sanity as regards the Auxiliary Forces. This is not the first time that Pall Mall has alternated between abject panic at the imminence of renewed invasion, and insolent boasts that invasion is not practicable. In the one state of mind it throws money recklessly away to get an adequate force together. In the other it undoes everything which has been done, and treats with contumely those who came forward in the hour of danger.. The preparations of Napoleon the Great at Boulogne brought 400,000 Volunteers to the standards. In 1814 they were disbanded. In 1859 renewed fear of invasion. Then the cold fit. In 1900 renewed high fever. Great service by the Volunteers. Again ice-baths, and worse. It is the duty of every commanding officer to help your able correspondent, "Volunteer Field Officer," with all the information he can. The Queen's Westminsters sent 305 of its members to South Africa out of 690 who volunteered. In addition, 910 volun- teered for permanent garrison duty in London so as to release the entire Brigade of Guards for the field. Of the former, 300 volunteered for the City Imperial Volunteers, and 115 were accepted ; 100 volunteered for the King's Royal Rifles (in the front line as usual), and 45 went out; 200 volun- teered for the Imperial Yeomanry, and 108 were taken. Of 11 officers and 294 Riflemen taking part in the war, 11 were killed or died of disease, others were wounded and contracted serious illness. A further 50 volunteered for the South African Constabulary—a military and fighting body, it will be remem- bered—and 11 were accepted. All who went to South Africa had had at least two years' efficient service, were good soldiers, marksmen, without dependents, and of good education,—men of the type, that is, of which the Regular Army appears from the Report of the Director of Recruiting only to possess 7 per cent. Of our gallant neighbours the London Scottish,. 500 volunteered for South Africa, and 209 went out. In addition to the foregoing, the Queen's Westminsters offered to organise a field battalion 1,000 strong at its own expense in August, 1899, and at the same time the London Scottish offered the service company to the Gordon Highlanders which six months. later was so gratefully accepted and did such good service.—,
P.S.—I am glad to hear that the Institute of Commanding Officers of Volunteers is moving. It is time.
[The evidence here given, and that which is being collected privately by " Volunteer Field Officer," the general results of which we hope to publish later, all tend to show that the Volunteers form in fact a most valuable reservoir of trained men, and that if the authorities had known their business they might have drawn, not thirty thousand, but sixty thousand fighting men of the best kind from the Volunteers at the crisis of the South African War.—ED. Spectator.]
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