It was announced on Thursday that Lord Wemyss and Colonel
Eustace Balfour, brother of Mr. Arthur Balfour, had resigned their positions of Honorary Colonel and Colonel in the London Scottish—one of the finest Volunteer regiments in the Kingdom--owing to a difference of opinion with the War Office. We are not going to attempt to enter into the merits of the dispute, which arose over the question of a month's training under canvas, nor do we wish to attach too much importance to the incident. We do wish, however, to express and put on record our fervent hope that the War Office will not injure the Volunteers by depriving them of that purely voluntary character which constitutes their true strength. We look with no little alarm upon the tendency in certain quarters to try to turn the Volunteers into imitation Regulars. To do that is to ruin a body of men which, if left as they are, are capable of doing most useful work. Encourage marksmanship by all possible means, and make the Volunteers as mobile as possible, but otherwise let all the regulations connected with them be easy and elastic.
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