THE NEW HOME ARMY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13298, 29 May 1907, Page 7

THE NEW HOME ARMY.

MR. HALDANE'S SCHEME,

The following is a partial explanation of the. new Home Army S'cheme proposed by Mr Haldane, the present Minister of War: There is some senseless bickering as to whether in the new order of affairs the, Militia will absorb the Volunteers, or vi6e verSa, whereas it may be said precisely that neither contingency- will happen. The report of the Royal Commission, which sat under the -presidency, of the Duke of Norfolk in 1903 t-o inquire into the organisation, numbers, and terms of service of our Militia and Volunteer forces," was unfavourable to both. That report condemned the ■ condition and the absence of organisation in the Militia and Volunteers, and pointed out that in several respects the one acted' detrimentally on the other as competitors. for much the same class of recruits. Such a costly system stood selfcondemned. The obvious thing io do, after consideration of all the. points, was to take from the Militia and the Yolunteers all that was good, and t-o throw away all that was bad, and from the retrieved parts form a new mass capable of a vigorous and healthy life, and, if need be at any time, of a wide and generous expansion. Now, that is very much what Mr Haldane and his advisers are seeking to do. lhpy.;dctermined, in the first instance, that the Home Defence Army, like the Expedit- • ionary Force, must have an organisation that, preferably, should assimilate itself to that- of ; the Regular Army, where ia the division has taken tfie place of the abortive Army Corps plan. Then came the important consideration — what should be the strength of the proposed Home Army, having regard to the purpose for which it should exist? It- was determined that fourteen divisions were necessary. each to be complete with cavalry, artillery, engineers, medical and service Corps, and adequate transport. This was an enormous step in advance of anything that had previously been attempted. The United Kingdom has now been marked out in a number of districts corresponding with that of prescribed divisions. 'I heir extent varies enormously, and it proved a somewhat intricate task to split up the country into areas, each of which, apart from it? size, would furnish an equal population. During tlie last five years a number of selected Volunteer battalions have been trained for periods of sixteen days annually with great success, judged from' the most military point of view.. The officers of the Regular Army who inspected and reported upon tlie way in

which these battalions of the* Volunteer Field Army Brigades, as they were called, acquitted themselves, were enthusiastic in their approval of. the system under- which the Volunteers received , two weeks' field training each year. It was the success achieved by these battalions that, mainly influenced the Army Council to'fix, as tar as possible; without being, absolutely arbitrary, sixteen days as the ordinal y p-riocl of annual, or embodied, training lor tlu new Territorial Force. Their training, however, will be as in the case of the Volunteers, continuous at headquarters and in the districts all the year round'. To form these fourteen divisions it will be necessarv to have 300,C00 ' men a a in training,* it having been widely decided tha Territorial Army must always be an active one—that is to say, no portion of it can be allowed the privilege, of lying quiescent in reserve. A fortnight's annual training even after a series of years is not de-em-ed a sufficient foundation en which to buildup a thoroughly stable reserve. Those who look for points of resemblance in the administration of the new Territorial Force with those- of the present Militia, Imperial Yeomanry, and Volunteers, will do -so in vain. Commanding and other officers will be in the happy position of finding themselves relieved from the pressure of personal financial responsibility, and also of the duty of raising their own recruits. The proposed county authorities will undertake these matters, and executive officers will be free to confine themselves to the demand's of training and command. So. in the end, it will be the employers of labour who will seql the fate ox the Home Army Scheme. The scheme, whicli the Secretary of State for War has picturesquely described as a "bulwark against conscription," must be accepted, or on-? that will probably be thought worse will bs created,, for it is inconceivable that anything less can be offered. It is the irreducible minimum.' - .