July 24, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
hearted supporter of the mo\ emeiit, its laureate, and un- 
less we are much mistaken he himself marches in its 
ranks. In point of age he is entirely eligible ; in fact, 
the doyen of the force. 
It is on this question of age that the new Volunteers 
chiefly stand apart from all their forerunners. Earlier 
corps did not require to impose any restriction on their 
.membership. In the days when Sir Walter Scott was 
Quartermaster of the Edinburgh Volunteer Light Horse, 
the public danger, although serious enough, was not 
such as to impose the obligation of service on every fit 
man of military years. And in 1859, although the threat 
of invasion was sufficiently real to produce a Volunteer 
army that far surpassed every expectation in point of 
numbers and enthusiasm, the younger men could enrol 
without reproach. There was then no question of majv- 
ing the corps an excuse for shirking a sterner task. The 
youthful (and whiskered) Volunteer could shoulder his 
muzzle-loading Enfield with the best possible conscience 
and shoot away his ramrod with the full consciousness 
of patriotic duty bravely done. To-day the young man 
is rightly barred from the civilian ranks, unless on suffi- 
cient cause shown, and an undertaking to serve with the 
Regular Forces, if called upon. 
Hence the whole character of the corps is changed. 
It represents no longer an overflow of young energy, but 
the quiet determination of men who saw themselves dis- 
qualified by age for the most active, the only satisfying 
service, to do what they might for defence of hearth and 
home. The idea of pastime has vanished. The work 
has been undertaken in a spirit of high seriousness and 
of earnest devotion. Men long past the years of full 
agil'tj) rnen to whom the armchair had become a proper 
and deserved refuge after the day's work, have cheerfully 
sacrificed their twilight ease to march and counter-march, 
to learn the art of " digging-themselves-in," to submit 
to discipline and bear fatigue. The physical drill class 
has reduced what Gilbert in his " Discontented Sugar 
Broker " calls " adipose deposits," and many who last 
autumn thought their running days were over, can now 
perform an extended attack in rushes without losing 
breath or turning a hair. The old boys are renewing 
their youth as the eagle his age. 
Docility and determination have made progress ex- 
ceptionally rapid. The awkward squad very quickly 
became the efficient platoon; for every man works hard 
to obtain his proficiency badge. Veterans of ripe age 
are indefatigable in musketry practice, and will not rest 
until they have passed the War Office test for shooting. 
They blaze away twopences innumerable for ammuni- 
tion, and watch their target with a jealous and sometimes 
a wistful eye. If not to-day, then to-morrow they will 
qualify, and next week, perhaps, go one better, and be 
classed as marksmen. Hope springs eternal in the 
veteran's breast. Among those not so old and still 
vigorous the standard of marksmanship is very high. 
It is Hope that most of all sustains the Volunteer. 
On Hope he has done all that he has done, and he still 
trusts that his efforts will not be in vain. Like his pre- 
decessor of 1859 and earlier, he has paid for his equip- 
ment out of his own pocket; his only grant from 
Authority has been a grant of red flannel, which is the 
essential part of his uniform. All else is mere decoration, 
smart and serviceable decoration, but without military 
significance up to the present. But our Volunteer still 
believes that he is on the right track and he goes forward 
gaily, in spite of dubious comment. 
The dubious commentators wag sapient heads at 
the movement and say, " Oh, yes, but will the Volun- 
teers be used ? Are the greybeards and the crocks not 
being allowed merely to amuse themselves, to keep them 
quiet? " Into the recesses of the official mind we have 
engaged not to attempt to penetrate here, but it may be 
surmised that Authority has no such cynical design. 
Amid a thousand preoccupations of greater urgency, 
Authority could not be expected to arm and equip the 
last line until the intermediate lines were sei-ved. 
Meanwhile, the last line perseveres to some purpose 
with its self-imposed task, and it would be difficult to 
say how it might be better employed. The Volunteers 
do not waste time in grumbling over any supposed lack 
of encouragement. They are their own encouragement. 
Already, thanks to their Central Association, their 
organisation has won important concessions, which have 
given the body no little heart. Not the least valuable of 
these has been the introduction of the county system, 
which has united the independent local companies into 
regiments with a territorial designation. Esprit, de corps, 
never lacking from the outset, has now a fuller signifi- 
cance. The movement proceeds on a larger scale and 
gains the momentum of augmented mass. 
The scale and the mass are, perhaps, hardly 
realised by the public at large. That was impossible, 
as long as the village or district corps carried on its work 
in splendid isolation, but now, when single counties can 
muster many battalions and show numbers running in 
many cases into tens of thousands, the movement has 
become visible. Frequent field days, which bring 
together large bodies of these new territorials, are put- 
ting to the proof the work already done. The Volun- 
teers are showing that they can at least manoeuvre at bat- 
talion strength without reproach and with increasing 
promise of improvement. They are not puffed up, and 
know they have still a long way to go, but tliey take 
correction cheerfully as a necessary stage on the road. 
Historians of the older Volunteer movement have 
noted with regret that it suffered from overmuch adula- 
tion. The Eighteen-Fifty-Niners took the public by 
storm and were petted and praised more than was good 
for them. Their numbers alone won instant recogni- 
tion, and the public made no secret of its pride in the 
new force. But the first enthusiasm died young ; volun- 
teering soon ceased to be fashionable and languished 
somewhat until 1886, when it at length won tardy sup. 
port from public funds and took a new lease of life. 
The new Volunteer of to-day runs no risk of over- 
encouragement from the public or the Powers-that-Be, 
and it is perhaps all the better that it should be so. The 
Powers may have had the history of the earlier move- 
ment in mind when they refused to rush out with official 
support. Perhaps in view of what is afoot, and the 
altered spirit of the nation, too long lulled to inaction, 
a little more cordiality would not have come amiss; but 
again we decline to criticise. Be that as it may, there can 
be no possible harm in any effort to stimulate public 
interest in this remarkable sign of the times, the spon- 
taneous growth of an army of half a million citizens, still 
vigorous, daily growing in efficiency, and capable at 
least of relieving younger men for the hardest service 
of all. That secondary duty is the most the over-age 
Volunteer can hope to perform, but he believes that he 
could perform it competently at need. As yet, he has 
only a qualified assurance that his time, strength, and 
money are not being expended in vain ; but the om.ens, 
if a little ob!>cure, are not wholly unpropitious, and on 
that he goes forward. He cherishes a modest convic- 
tion that a train-band half a million strong cannot 
remain a negligible, though necessarily humble, counter 
in the great national and Imperial adventure. He may 
have his comic side, but even that won him immortality 
in the figure of the doughty and tenacious train-band 
captain, John Gilpin; and he does not forget that he 
also follows in the more dignified steps of the patriot, 
John Milton, member of the Honourable Artillery Com- 
pany. He knows, too, that l!ie Chief Captain takes long 
views of this war, and he is content to bide his time, to 
train assiduously, and to possess his soul in patience until 
the day when he is assigned a task. A movement of such 
spontaneous vitality, enthusiasm, and strength cannot 
surely fail to be of some serA-ice at a moment when every 
man must do his part for tiie cause of Liberty and 
Civilisation. The Volunteers represent tiie class most 
difficult to utilise; it says something for that cljss that 
it found its own way, unaided, towards a possible sphere 
of service. Tlie rest is on the knees of the gfods. 
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