INVASION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 805, 30 April 1910, Page 6

INVASION.

ME. CHOECTHILL'S' VIEW 01? TEE CASE. la tho' Houeo of Commons recently, Mr. Churchill, speaking oil the Army Estimates, set out propositions on which' he based the' assertion that tho oxistiug forces were adequate for home defence. He said, in the fust place, that it was not possible to invade' Britain with a large army by surprise or in secret, and it was becoming less possible evory day. it might be possibly conceivable to make a descent with a small.force, but oven that was disputed by a very powerful school of opinion.' §o long, howovor, as the.military force -which wo maintained in Great Britain was strong enough to make it not worth while for an invader to come unless ho came • with an army of a certain size,, there was no danger of a sudden, secret, or surprise attack.' No army largo enough to effect decisive, or even important, results could be put to 6ea without being discovered, intercepted, and destroyed before it reached our, shores. (Hear, hear.) He was speaking, of course, on the assumption that tho Regular Army yas kept at home, and that we had,' in addition to the Territorial Force, 140,000 or 150,000 iirst-rato Regular troops organised in- a manner which made them equal, unit for unit, to tho troops of any &>_untry, and equipped with tho best gun in Europe. It might bo.asked,.however; what waas to happen when tho Regular Army was out of the country. It had been said:' "You talk of six months being available for the training of the Territorial Forces. How do you know that you will bo able to secure them that breathing. space?" No one had said on behalf of tho Government that the Territorial Force could never, under any circumstances, be called upon to fight with less than six months' training. What they did cav was that they never would be called upon to fight alone, unsupported by .any Regular troops, without a period of trnnu ing muoh more extended than they had at present. Before tho Regular Army could be sent out of tho country, the command of the sea must be established beyond dispute, and tho mere process of dispatching tho Expeditionary Force would be an operation' involving a measure of delay, which would be of tho utmost value to the Territorial Army in .jmalisiiig its latent errnngfrh. ?