In these circumstances—and we challenge any man to show that
our figures are incorrect, and that the offer for service at the front was not made as we have described it and by the numbers we state to have made it—it is exceedingly unfair to the Volunteers that Mr. Arnold-Forster's injurious statement that the response made to the national call to arms by the Volunteers was a " meagre" one should be repeated on the authority of the Times. Let us hasten to add that we feel sure that the statement of the Times was not intended to be misleading or unfair, but we trust that our contemporary will look into the facts regarding the total number of Volunteers who at the close of 1899 declared themselves willing to go to the front. We may point out that in the return to which we are alluding returns were not obtained from nearly forty corps. If these had been included, it is probable that some two thousand men would have to be added to the figures we have given.
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