LETTE RS TO TH E EDITOR,.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER AND THE YEOMANRY.
[TO Tun EDITOR or Via 'SPECTATOR:3 SIR,—I have to thank you for giving publicity to my letter on Army reform. In publishing it in your issue of the 4th inst. you add an editorial note which has given me great satisfaction, for it convinces me that much of the censure with which the Spectator has visited my proposals for Army reorganisation was due to a misapprehension which your note enables me to remove. You say : "As to the Volunteers, we objected to Mr. Arnold-Foreter's scheme because he wished to drive out of the force as redundant and useless the men who could not conform to his rigid requirements as regards service in camp." Allow me to assure you that this is a mistake. The only action taken by the Army Council, while I was a member of it, in connexion with camp attendance was to relax the strict rules with regard to attendance. No proposal was made at any time which tended to make the requirements as regards service in camp more rigid than before, and it was never for a moment proposed or suggested that men who could not attend camp were to be regarded as "redundant." It is true that the Army Council, while I had the honour of being a member of it, did regard certain members of the Volunteer Force as redundant, and desired to get rid of them; but these were not the men who could not attend camp. They were the men who were reported by their own commanding officers, and by their own medical officers, as medically unfit for service. Among those so reported were many affected with heart disease, rupture, hernia, and other incapacitating ailments. These men, numbering, I have reason to believe, not less than thirty-four thousand, the Army .Council did regard as redundant, and I still so regard them. In order that the corps which lost these men might not suffer pecuniarily or be reduced in numbers, the Army Council decided, with the approval of the Government, to devote a sum of 2175,000 towards replacing the inefficient men by really efficient Volunteers. It was with great regret that I noted the decision of the Army Council, directly after Mr. Haldane's accession to office, to reverse this arrangement, to keep the useless men in the ranks, and to commit the country to an annual expenditure, more than sufficient to maintain the 3rd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards, for the maintenance of thousands of admittedly useless men.—I am, Sir, Sre.,
H. 0. ARNOLD•FORSTER.
P.5.—Since writing the above I have seen the letters of Sir Alfred Turner and Colonel Le Roy-Lewis in the Spectator of the 11th inst. The letters appear to me uncalled for, and are quite beside the mark. Everybody knows that the great credit of forming the Imperial Yeomanry on their present basis is due entirely to Mr. Brodrick. Having frequently borne testimony to the fact, I am not likely to have been guilty of the palpable absurdity of. claiming the merit.of this valuable reform. My reference, as I should have thought was obvious, is to the Order which instituted a fixed establishment in the Yeomanry regiments. This Order was,asI have stated, violently attacked when issued, and a debate upon it took place in the House of Lords. The result of the Order has, however, fully justified those who advised its issue. The total number of the Yeomanly Las increased ; the weak regiments have gained in numbers ; the strong regiments have gained. in quality and prestige. Commanding officers can now afford to pick their men, and to get rid of the unprofitable, and this is the secret of the efficiency of the best regiments. Your correspondents' remark with respect to the reduction of the establishment of the Imperial Yeomanry is either meaningless or misleading. The establishment which was reduced was a war establishment which bore no relation whatever to actual numbers. The strength of the Yeomanry increased, and did not diminish. It will be observed that when these facts are known the criticism has no force. The example as I have given it proves exactly what I intended it to prove,—namely, that it is fairest to judge the policy for which I was respon- sible from 1903 to 1905 by its results, and not by the bard words which were said of it by some of those who had neither patience. nor inclination to ascertain the real nature Ind intention of the policy they denounced.
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