THE AGE OF THE TERRITORIAL FORCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR "l
Sia,—In your last issue you published a letter in which Mr. Dixon, writing as an ex-commanding officer, states (1) that three-quarters of the rank and file of each unit in the Territorial Force are under twenty years of age ; (2) that most of the recruits join at little over the minimum age of seventeen ; and (3) that the Government is deceiving the nation. The facts are that the Government publishes annually the ages of the men in the force, and that it is those who write and publish such letters as Mr. Dixon's who are deceiving the nation. The Annual Return (Cd. 6,657) shows that on October 1st, 1912, the number of non-commissioned officers and men in the force under twenty was, not 75 per cent., but 26 per cent., and that out of 53,515 who joined as recruits during the previous year only 14,982 were under eighteen on that date. If Mr. Dixon's figures are accurate as regards his own unit, it must be about three times as bad as the average unit throughout the force, and it scarcely becomes him to
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