A MILITARY “CIRCUS”

Evening Star, Issue 14512, 2 November 1910, Page 9

A MILITARY “CIRCUS”

A scheme to familiarise the people both | of this country and of tho Overseas Do- { minions with the daily life and actual con- | ditions of service of all ranks in tho Bri- I tish Army, to stimulate recruiting, and to t give much needed help to several of the I military charities is now being elaborated by a board composed almost entirely of | army officers. The details of the scheme I have not been finally settled, but, broadly * nut, the idea underlying it is to take the British Army, in miniature, on tour, first throughout the provinces, and then in Can- | ada, South Africa, Australia, New Zca- | land, and India. The organisation, the | military details of which are being earned I out by Colonel A. G. Burn, of tho Indian Army, is to consist of fifty officers, 100 non-commissioned officers, and 1,000 men, | all of whom must have served with the | colors. It is intended that every branch j of tho Army shall be represented—infantry, S cavalry, artillery, engineers, array service j corps, and the royal a run medical corps J —with the appropriate equipment, and j that there should also bo a naval detach- I ment, composed of men who have served in j the Navy, with guns. A “permanent j camp ” is to be established at Watford, ? and hero the men are to be trained for j the display which will be given in every J town or centre visited. This display will f follow tho lines of the naval and military I tournament held in London, and it will I conclude with “Tho Charge of tho Light ? Brigade” as a spectacle. The tour is to | begm at Birmingham on Easter Monday, j April 17, 1911, and it is contemplated that i it will extend over three years. That, at ji all events, is the period for which the men ? have to “ enlist.” ’The rate of pay has 1 been fixed at £2 per week, with free kit, rations, and sleeping accommodation. It | is estimated by the promoters, who are j mostly military me.i, that the weekly ex- 1 per.ses of the undertaking will amount to | £2,500, but they “ confidently expect that I £200,000 will be easily raised as tho result j of three years’ work at Home and in the ] colonies” for tho purposes of the military ; charities. Tho profits of the tour, we arc j informed, are to bo handed over to tin 1 trustees, and they alone will bo chargci | with the duty of allocating the money 3 But apparently charity is not to have l. I look in until an unnamed group of hives- j tors, who are putting £50,000 into th. | scheme and drawing 10 per cent, interest, j have recouped themselves. |

The scheme has been submitted to tin War Office with a view to enlisting tin approval and support of the department and the matter is now under the con sidcration of the Secretary of State an the Army Council. [The War Office n ported adversely, and the scheme wa abandoned.—Ed. E.S.] An adverse criticism of the scheme appears in this week's ‘ Truth,’ which protests against the War Office sanctioning “ the organisation of what is nothing more or less than -a huge military circus by some nameless syndicate.”—London correspondent.