COMMENDED ESSAY, 1895. 385 
minor details which can be best adjusted by the officers that belong to 
them. Nor have we touched with the idea of suggesting improvements 
upon the rules and regulations which at present govern Military 
instruction in the several branches of the Artillery. Hxcellent articles 
on this subject have appeared from time to time in the pages of the 
R.A.I. “ Proceedings,” and the R.U.S.I. “Journal”; also in various 
miscellaneous periodicals to which those interested may refer. The 
great point we have aimed at has been to arrive at some general basis 
of action, knowing that when men are agreed on general principles they 
seldom differ seriously as to details. 
The idea we have had in view from first to last has been to remove 
the process of mobilization for war from the catagory of catastrophies, 
into something which will resemble the daily assembly of labourers in 
a great workshop, to the ringing of the office bell, and all we have 
_ asked is common sense, and an high feeling of duty in all concerned. 
If our conclusions are correct, we shall thus have shewn how when 
the cry “To Arms” shall go forth throughout the length and breadth 
of the empire, and the order to mobilise be given at home and abroad, 
every man of the Garrison Artillery, be he Regular, Militia, or Volun- 
teer will be able to make a fair estimate of what he will be doing hour 
by hour from that moment to the time when he may lie down in his 
own bed in his own proper tent or barrack room, with a knowledge 
that to-morrow morning he will rise to the performance of definite 
duties, in his proper position in his own gun emplacement, in his own 
Battery in his own Coast Fortress. 
If this can but be realised for each individual, we need have but 
little anxiety for the arrangements as a whole. 
Our defence may indeed prove unequal to the power of the enemy, 
but we may be sure that it will have been vigorous to the utmost of 
human capability, and that we shall have for ever more the proud satis- 
faction of remembering that from first to last, there was a duty for 
every man, and that every man did his duty. 
