[To TUB EDITOR OP THE "SPROPAT0R. ^ 1 Sin,—Few people who know
anything of the present pro- ceedings of the War Office, personified in the Secretary of
State for War, will differ from you in your conclusion that facts like those stated by your correspondent, Mr. H. K. Stephenson, in the Spectator of April 22nd, with reference to the treatment meted out to the 4th West York (Sheffield) Artillery "positively make one despair."
Most people also will agree with you that it is no good merely to use strong language about past and present Secretaries of State, however much in some cases it may be deserved. If the people of this country, who are the real ruling power, consent, either through indifference or long-suffering, to tolerate the policy of the present Government in regard to the Volunteers and Militia, they will have no grounds for complaint when the disastrous effects of that policy make themselves felt.
Both Volunteers and Militia have been in the past disbanded and destroyed through the colossal stupidity and obstinacy of the Government in being, only to be resuscitated at infinite pains and cost when the country was in dangerous straits. History is but repeating itself.
The one consolation for those who have the real interests of the country at heart, and who are not blinded by preconceived prejudices against all former administrators and administration of the Army, must be that whatever measures the next Govern- ment adopt with regard to the Army, no possible flight of imagination can picture their doing more harm than has been accomplished in the last year. Politically speaking, the present War Minister is probably the best asset by far of the Opposition, who will no doubt understand how to draw the best advantages from his administration. It is no secret that the small majority of the Government on the Volunteer vote (31) was only wrung out of many Government supporters by an appeal ad misericordiam, that defeat would mean Dissolution and General Election, which would be followed by an enormous Liberal majority.
With regard to your correspondent's statements, they are, with one exception, absolutely correct. He is not right in saying that Lord Lansdowne did all in his power to prevent the services of Volunteers being accepted for the war. It was natural at the beginning of the war, when it was thought by those who did not or would not know any better that a force of twenty thousand men would bring it successfully to a conclusion in three months, at a cost of £15,000,000, that the patriotic offers of Volunteers should not have been accepted. When, however, defeat after defeat was announced, and the impossibility of defeating the Boers with the Regular Army became only too apparent, no one 'could have been more encouraging to the Volunteers or more ready to accept their services than was Lord Lansdowne, and no War Minister showed more lively appreciation of the Auxiliary Forces than did he, and for a matter of that Mr. George Wynd- ham, both in and out of Parliament. All this is changed now, and appreciation has been replaced by hostility, which furnishes a melancholy comment upon the consistency of the administra- tion of the Army under the Government of Mr. Balfour.
What your correspondent says otherwise of the treatment of the 4th West York Artillery is absolutely the case, and the reply given by the War Minister to Sir Howard Vincent is not only incorrect, but is not even plausible.
This corps has for many years been equipped, trained, inspected, and commanded as Field Artillery. Up to latterly it has been armed with old muzzle-loading field guns, the existence of which in any other country than Great Britain would be treated with derision. When, after the war in South Africa, some 15-pounders were available, a small proportion were given to Volunteer Artillery corps which were already armed with field guns, in order that the former might familiarise themselves with the use of these guns, before their complete rearmament with them took place. There was no question of lending the guns at all; they were only the forerunners of what was to come.
Notwithstanding the so-called large increase of the Royal Field Artillery, should we be involved in a war with a Great Power, we shall require the whole of it for the army in the field, and we may then have bitter cause to regret that we should have allowed Volunteer field batteries to be destroyed which, though not equal to our incomparable Horse or Field Artillery, would, having regard to the professions and intelligence of most of their officers and men, be good enough for all purposes of home defence if they were armed with guns up to date. Such batteries do not cost the tenth part of the sum necessary to maintain a field battery of the Royal Artillery.
' Clearly it is intended in every possible direction to belittle the value of the Volunteer Force, which for nearly two years has had ample opportunity of discovering the solution of a problem once propounded by George Eliot,—namely, whether the miseries of delusive expectation outweigh or not the miseries of true
Scarborouoh.
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