NATIONAL SERVICE.
[To THE EDITOR OP TER " SPECTATOR."]
SIR, In your article last week on "National Defence," you quote Sir Ian Hamilton's remarks upon organization and training of lads, made in his speech at Birmingham on the 24th of last month. I imagine that the printed address is not yet available for perusal. It is true that Sir Ian did not speak in any detail of the necessity for universal training of young men of the classes 1892-1893-1894 at once, but he did suggest a scientific scheme for the training of the classes 1895-1896-1897-1898-1899-1900 at a cost of 22,000,000 per annum. We are said to be a nation with common sense as our characteristic. If so, it is to be hoped that when com- pulsory training is adopted we shall not fail to provide compulsory continued education and compulsory cadet training organized upon the basis of the school and our methods so standardized that a "passed cadet" may present himself, at the Territorial age, as a 7/8th trained recruit for the Citizen Army.—I am, Sir, &c., "SEARCHLIGHT." London.
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