Q.F) GUNS FOR FIELD ARTILLERY. 
457 
batteries into action unless your No. 1 or layer can put tbe shot 
where whoever is in command wants it. Therefore you ought to 
encourage your men to be good shots by constant practice and also 
the captain of the gun ought to have additional pay. It is possible 
also that you may have to reduce the weight of the shot, but any man 
who has been in action knows that it is much better to lay on to the 
enemy with a great number of small shots than with a few large ones. 
There was another point which was mentioned which is the supply 
of ammunition. Now the supply of ammunition used to be an old 
bogey as many officers in this room know. I myself remember, and 
so does a gallant Admiral I see here, the old muzzle loading rifle 
and muzzle loading gun. When the breech loader was introduced 
this was the great bogey : “ Oh, don't you have the breech loader, 
you will never be able to control the men, and they will waste the am¬ 
munition, and you will never be able to take enough ammunition into 
the field with breech loader guns or rifles." I should call that a 
bogey. Do let us have the best arm. We have no right to see 
foreign countries, the great military powers particularly, arming their 
Horse and Field Artillery with quick firing guns unless we do the 
same, and I maintain that the officers who have written these essays 
have done a great national good. They have everything on their side ; 
they have done what we have done in the navy and what the great 
military powers are doing at this moment to get quick firing guns, 
and we ought to do the same. I do not know whether there are any 
members of Parliament present,—I think I see one and he is a man 
who takes great interest in military matters (Mr. Arnold-Forster), I 
know I shall have his support in the House of Commons in raising 
this question again. 
Colonel Lonsdale A. Hale :—Since artillery does not fire only on 
artillery on a battle field, the question of the adoption of Q.F. guns 
concerns the other arms as much as it does the gunners. If any one 
nation chooses to adopt this diabolical weapon, which by a storm of 
shot and shell can bring at certain moments an annihilating fire on 
its enemy, other nations must adopt it also, for no army can escape 
demoralization if opposed to another provided with a specially destruc¬ 
tive weapon which it does not itself possess. It would be well if 
the artillery would bear in mind the old proverb “ the better is the 
enemy of th b good," and would quickly provide the army with a fairly 
good Q.F. gun rather than expend time in searching after a better 
one, for the day is past when is was a debateable question whether or 
not the army should have such a gun; the Q.F. gun it must have, and 
quickly too. 
The Chairman :— I have to apologise to you for taking the chair 
this afternoon as a pis aller. The Duke of Connaught was unexpect¬ 
edly summoned to Windsor, and try how we would we have not been 
able at such short notice to obtain anybody whom we wished par¬ 
ticularly to take the chair. We tried in every possible direction. We 
tried to get the Commander-in-Chief ; we tried to get Lord Roberts; 
we have tried all round; and I am simply taking the chair because we 
have been utterly defeated and we can get nobody else. 
