6 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



cause experience shows that the pubHc require to be 

 instructed over and over again before they can 

 appreciate the slightest change from time-honoured 

 methods.' I do not presume to instruct them ; I 

 only propose to give them some information which, 

 I trust, may be useful. 



I by no means desire to hold up the Times as 

 equal in authority in all matters to the four Gospels, 

 but I believe, on the whole, that it gives utterance to 

 the concentrated common-sense of England. There- 

 fore it is that I have felt justified in quoting its 

 opinion on this, and the quotation just given is sup- 

 ported by another in the same paper, in the same 

 spirit, in a leading article of ]\Iarch ii, 1904, on 

 Army Reform. In justification of a statement made 

 by Mr. Arnold-Forster in Parliament when exploding 

 some utterly absurd charge, the Times says : ' The 

 allegation is absurd to anyone who thinks, but there 

 are so many people who do not think that there is 

 hardly anything too absurd to require explicit refuta- 

 tion.' So on the subject that I am dealing with. 

 Such a vast number of people never think at all, but 

 adopt wholesale the most absurd assertions — as, for 

 instance, that the English thoroughbred is a pure 

 breed, and that the Arab is useless — that you may 

 be excused for citing authorities to refute them. 

 Indeed, as the Times puts it, you must do so : it is 

 necessary to repeat again and again. 



A country farmer who will pay no attention to the 

 statements of two or three persons, may be led to 



