504 the employment of the 5" b.l. howitzer. 
(1) .—That the present arrangement furnishes a unit ready to 
hand which only requires augmentation on mobilisation 
while the plan proposed requires a complete supply of 
drivers and horses to each Siege Train Company on 
mobilisation. This is true but the difference is only one 
of degree. A Field Howitzer Battery requires on mobi¬ 
lisation an addition of 17 drivers and 98 horses, while a 
Siege Train Battery would require 71 drivers and 156 
horses. 
(2) .—That a Siege Train Company would be at the disadvan¬ 
tage of having officers and men who are wanting in know¬ 
ledge of horse management, and marching. 
This must also be admitted to be at any rate theoretically true; but 
a similar argument might be employed against the use of mounted in¬ 
fantry, who are not theoretically supposed to know anything about 
horses, and the short training they do get, would in the case of Siege 
companies be counter-balanced by the fact that drivers would be sup¬ 
plied with the horses ; moreover it is not absolutely necessary to be an 
officer of a mounted corps in order to know something about horse 
management. 
It is not essential that all guns that are employed in the field should 
be manned by the Field Artillery. The Mountain Batteries afford an 
instance of an exception and it is to be hoped that the Howitzer Bat¬ 
teries may too, in course of time, for there would be general advantages 
obtained from such a step. They are— 
(1) .—Three Field Batteries will be freed for their legitimate 
work and then the total number that it is intended to keep 
up will be sooner made up. 
(2) .—A larger number of Field Howitzers than at present exist, 
will be ready at no additional expense, for there will be 
two Siege Units of 24 howitzers each. 
(3) .—An increased chance of seeing service will be given to the 
Garrison Artillery through the Siege Companies ; at 
present their only chance of service is through the Moun¬ 
tain Batteries and how little this helps them will be ap¬ 
parent from a glance at the composition of the force now 
on its way to South Africa. This is an important con¬ 
sideration as it must affect the popularity and recruiting 
' both of the officers and men for the Garrison Artillery. 
(4) .—Lastly a definite and satisfactory organisation and speciali¬ 
sation of the Siege Artillery would become possible. 
Siege Companies at home, and Heavy Batteries in India 
would be similarly armed and equipped, and by putting 
them altogether on one list, like the Mountain Artillery, 
reliefs and supply of drafts could take place among these 
trained units, thus saving the waste of previous training 
and expense such as often happens now, with indis¬ 
criminate reliefs, and drafts furnished from anywhere 
and everywhere 
