Local Defence
In country districts the response for Defence Volunteers has been excellent. Gamekeepers, farmers, farm labourers, lorry drivers, fruit growers, ex-service men of all kinds have been formed into village units. In the way typical of countrymen they show independence and sturdiness rather than enthusiasm. They dislike the outside control which consigns them to positions of defence which they regard as absurd, and which makes little or no use of their knowledge of local territory. That knowledge, it seems to me, may be of the very greatest importance. The position of a forty-acre field, the class of road leading to a remote railway bridge, the judgement of distances—always difficult—across country intersected by hedges ; all these are things of which the countryMan's knowledge is invaluable and are services which he can readily supply, if asked, in addition to his time. He is very much aware, too, of certain aspects of the parachute menace for which he feels there is not yet any adequate protection. In two months' time the standing corn crops will be targets for incen- diarism. Nor does a farmer feel that his services are being well used when he is asked to leave a hundred and fifty head of cattle for a solitary post, without telephone, four miles away. The gap between the mind of Whitehall and the mind of the countryman is very large. The defences of the countryside will be all the better when it is lessened and the services of countrymen arc intelligently and fully used.
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