XXI THE MILITARY AND POLICE FORCES 213 
prestige we still maintain. That when the Abyssinian 
boundary was delineated it was so drawn with a view 
to interposing the desert as a buffer between ourselves 
and a warlike and predatory race. That these posts 
are most unhealthy and disagreeable, and that the loss 
we suffer through their retention is for this reason not 
one of money alone. 
These arguments are without question true in fact, 
but the advocates of the wider policy produce as a 
counter the argument that when we as an Empire 
undertook the administration of the Protectorate we 
undertook the liabilities attaching to the worst in 
addition to the benefits attaching to the best portions 
of that Protectorate. It is therefore our bounden duty 
to give adequate protection to even the poorest and 
meanest tribes which inhabit its furthest boundaries. 
As to the weakness or soundness of these conflicting 
arguments each man must judge for himself. It may, 
however, be pointed out that the present policy is 
unlikely to meet with favour with either side, since 
though the expense is great the garrisons are too 
meagre to afford protection to our subject races. 
Moreover, the instructions of those garrisons are, or 
have been, to suffer any indignity sooner than risk 
embroiling themselves with our neighbours across 
the frontier. 
It is with the volunteer movement that it is hoped to 
replace, as time goes on, our professional soldiers. 
Already we are possessed of a good proportion of 
keen and genuine volunteers—to take no account of 
those who have joined the corps for the sake of acquir¬ 
ing a rifle and cartridges wherewithal to replenish the 
larder. Moreover, there is a stout band of the Legion 
of Frontiersmen, to say nothing of the Boy Scouts. 
