Remounts for the Army 499 



supplies are none too plentiful now that we are 

 at peace, so what it will be when an important 

 war comes along is easier to imagine than to 

 remedy. We will give one example out of 

 many. At the annual meeting of the Auto- 

 mobile Association Mr. Joynson-Hicks, as 

 chairman, announced that their total member- 

 ship was 48,620, but as 4,135 fresh names had 

 been added during April, May and June (1912), 

 a total of 50,000 members would soon be 

 reached, each one of whom, we would add, are 

 more interested in motors than in horses. Mr. 

 Hicks's subsequent remarks confirm this im- 

 pression. " In ten years," he told those 

 present, " 5,000 hansom cabs and 1,000 horse 

 tramcars have disappeared from the streets ; 

 yet in spite of the fact that some 50,000 horses 

 have thus been removed from London, 

 &c., &c." 



Ten years takes us back to the Boer War, 



Haldane as Secretary for War, replied that " the pro- 

 vision of horses at that time (1906) was in a most unsatis- 

 factory state. The situation to-day was that the peace 

 establishment was practically complete. To complete 

 the war establishment a very large number of horses 

 would be required, but there was an ample supply of all 

 types except the light draught horses" [these are just the 

 horses that we believe could be raised on coco-nut 

 estates] , " which used to be adequately supplied by omni- 

 bus companies, and whose numbers were dwindling in 

 this as well as in other countries. Horses must be 

 obtained somehow, and the necessary measures were 

 being put into final shape for submission to the Trea- 

 sury, and he did not think the House would grudge the 

 expense." 



