292 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



aries able to believe that which they so ardently 

 wish. 



For as Mr W. Phillpotts Williams, the ener- 

 getic founder of the Brood Mare Society, pointed 

 out in June last (1908), the idea suggested recently 

 of giving to farmers in this country a bonus for 

 the possession of young horses suitable for 

 artillery mounts would never have the effect of 

 keeping horses in this country. All it would do, 

 as he says, would be to collect the horses at the 

 English tax-payers' expense for the foreigner to 

 buy. The horses would be kept by the English 

 farmer through the risky years of youth, only to 

 be bought, when matured and fit, by the buyers 

 for the foreign armies. 



Give a farmer ^5 a year. The foreigner has 

 only to add £5 to the horse's value, and away it 

 will go. What is needed, as Mr Williams truly 

 remarks — and none knows better the existing 

 condition of affairs in this respect at the present 

 time — is drastic action at the ports for horses 

 bred under such a grant, while in any and every 

 scheme that may be tried all the government- 

 bred stock ought to be ear-marked and kept 

 strictly in the country. 



One of the Belgian officers who visited England 

 officially some months ago incidentally mentioned 

 that the Belgian government has dealers in Ireland 

 who are commissioned to send over to the Belgian 

 army a large supply of horses annually. " Practi- 



