The Morning Post of Wednesday contained an article by Mr.
Spenser Wilkinson on "The Volunteer System." which we welcome as a masterly statement of the views that we have long been urging. His main point is that the nation can be trained to arms by two lessons a week, together with a certain number of Saturday afternoons and an annual fortnight in camp for manoeuvres. What is wanted is that this limited training should be of the best quality, and for this everything depends on the officers. The best professional officers in the Regular Army should be told off as Brigadiers to instruct the Volunteer officers, and the cost be borne by the War Office. Mr. Wilkinson has an interesting argument to explain the greater rate at which the Volunteer can attain efficiency as contrasted with the average Regular. It is because the one is a unit in a mechanical protession, while the other is making a hobby of his work, for which he gets no pay, and which he performs iii his scanty leisure. "His mind runs on Volunteering all the year round, and every bit of his practical experience is fertilised by reflection and by un- conscious cerebration." The same thing is to be noticed in the case of the men in the Spectator Experimental Company, who, though not Volunteers, have something of the same mental attitude. Their hearts being in their work, their training advances even out of working hours.
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