never seem to have recognised the advantages that it possesses; and there appears to be some risk of its being abandoned, now that the new registration scheme, such as it is, has been started. General Ravenhill had at first contemplated making the retainingfee £1 per annum; but he found that at that time (about twenty years ago, before the days of mechanical traction) 10s. a-year would suffice, and the figure has stood at that ever since, except for one short period which deserves a word of mention. It occurred to somebody in the War Office shortly after the South African war that an economy would be effected if the fee were reduced from 10s. to 5s. An economy was effected. The great London omnibus companies, which had kept the artillery on its legs on the veldt in 1900, declined to acquiesce in the reduction, they withdrew from the agreement, the number of registered horses dropped to insignificant proportions, and a few pounds were saved at the cost of a great loss in military efficiency. Then common-sense got the upper hand, the 10s. fee was restored, and it stands at that now. At the present time about 18,000 serviceable animals are registered by the Remount Department on these terms, and these will go some way towards providing the 44,000 necessary to mobilise the Expeditionary Force.

ought to be carried a good deal further. It is more than doubtful whether 10s. per annum is enough. Some of the great contractors and of the firms employing large numbers of light draught-horses insist that so small a sum does not give adequate encouragement to owners, and they ask boldly for a retaining - fee of £5 per annum. Such a sum must, however, be regarded as prohibitive, to secure 44,000 horses on those terms would cost £220,000 a-year. But the fee should certainly be raised to £1. There should, moreover be a distinct guarantee given that any owner who registers a fixed proportion of his animals on this principle shall be absolutely exempt from impressment when an emergency arises. On the other hand, it should be a clause in the contract that when mobilisation is proclaimed, the owner shall produce his quota of horses at some specified collecting-station, the expenses incurred in doing so being of course defrayed by the military. This will save an enormous amount of worry to the troops concerned when mobilisation takes place, while, on the other hand, it will give the owner very little trouble. There is no great difficulty in the way of military units sending parties to places on railway which have been previously determined, and of their taking their horses over there; but there is very great difficulty in the way of those

parties proceeding to some distant railway station and of their then dispersing to hunt about for the animals out in the country. It may seem absurd to pay a fee for what, under the law of the land, you can appropriate by compulsory purchase; but horse owners stand sorely in need of a little encouragement, and the units constituting the Expeditionary Force stand sorely in need of an organisation under which they will get their necessary remounts on mobilisation with a minimum of confusion and of delay.

It is a point to be noted, however, that the retainingfee system has never worked satisfactorily in Ireland. The people somehow do not seem to understand it, and in any case do not like it; considering the numbers of suitable horses available in the Emerald Isle, the numbers on the books of the Remount Department

are

comparatively speaking small. But this does not perhaps matter very much, because Ireland can be treated differently altogether

from

Great Britain. In the first place, there are no Territorials to complicate matters; and in the second place, the portions of the Expeditionary Force quartered in the country (practically the 5th and 6th Divisions) could probably be allowed some days longer for mobilising than is permissible in the case of the remainder. Difficulties as to ship-transport, coupled with the greater length of the voyage to the Continent from Irish ports

than from those in the south of England, place the 5th and 6th Divisions in a somewhat different category from the other four divisions and from the Cavalry Division. It seems quite possible that, if thoroughly efficient remount arrangements were in force on the far side of St George's Channel, and if registration and classification had been carried out by genuine experts who understood Hibernian ways and prejudices, the troops quartered in the island could be mobilised as regards their remounts by utilising the machinery of ordinary compulsory purchase. That would of course appreciably reduce the total annual charge for registration fees, bringing it down perhaps to £30,000. £10,000 is allocated to the service in this year's Army Estimates.

Up to the present only the question of mobilising the Expeditionary Force has been considered. But that force has also to be kept at its war establishment of horses in the field; and in addition to this, large numbers of remounts will be needed to fill up the regular units which are supernumerary to it.

Now, the conditions when this branch of the problem comes to be dealt with, obviously differ widely from those governing the original mobilisation. There will not be quite the same pressure as regards time; and, instead of the bulk of the remounts required being draught horses,

the demand will be rather for riding horses, because the wastage in the theatre of war is certain to be relatively much more heavy amongst the cavalry and mounted infantry than amongst the artillery and in the transport. Units take a small number of horses with them, supernumerary to the actual field establishment, which are reckoned under the heading "details left at the base"; but there is reason to fear that most of these will be absorbed at once. It is understood that, consequent upon South African experiences of troops being called upon to detrain very suddenly and to march on the spot, horses will start by train from their mobilisation stations, and will cross the sea with their hind shoes on this will mean a heavy casualty list before the troops even begin operations, and although the animals injured will probably be fit to march in two or three weeks, the first reserve will, in the first instance, have have disappeared. Still it is reasonable to assume that there will be no call upon the United Kingdom for fresh remounts for at least a week or two. That gives the authorities at home some breathing space, and under the circumstances there would not seem to be any need for extending the retaining-fee principle so as to provide this reserve-unless perhaps in the case of a few hundred artillery horses, these being the most difficult to procure.

The Expeditionary Force

could perhaps rely mainly upon Ireland for filling up the gaps due to overwork and to wounds; Great Britain is saddled with the task of filling up the Territorials, and it does not possess such satisfactory sources of supply. The strength of the reserve to be created at the outset has no doubt been decided upon by the War Office (although in the figures given out officially from to time one never seems to hear of any. thing except except the original mobilisation requirements). It must be remembered that cavalry depôts, spare horse and field batteries, R.E. depôts, A.S.C. depôts, and so forth, have all to be filled up with their contingent of remounts; and these units would perhaps be turned to account for looking after the reserve. But be that as it may, the total number of remounts required by the Regular Army within a few weeks of the order for mobilisation will mount up to a considerably higher figure than the 44,000 announced by Colonel Seely. 60,000 would be nearer the mark, and from 3000 to 5000 remounts would required monthly after

be

that.

It is most unlikely that foreign markets would be available, and it is by no means certain that we could always draw upon South Africa or Canada. The action of the United States, Argentina, and other neutral States, in permitting our buyers to openly purchase horses for service against the Boers, cannot be

looked upon as a precedent.1 We must be prepared to draw the whole of the animals necessary from within the United Kingdom. But, as a reasonable amount of time will be available once the Expeditionary Force is mobilised, the registration and classification scheme now in process of development may in time provide the requisite machinery for providing the reserve and for making good wastage.

It now only remains to say a word with regard to the Territorial Army. The UnderSecretary of State for War intimated on a recent occasion that these troops would need 86,000 horses to mobilise them, and, even if we take the force at its strength of 270,000 and not at its establishment of 315,000, this seems a modest figure. Yet, even 80, the number is greater than it need have been had the General Staff, when they drew up the ordre de bataille, only given more careful consideration to the strategical and tactical conditions under which the citizen soldiers would be operating in the event of war on home soil. Owing to the enclosed nature of the districts of the United Kingdom which would be likely to become the scene of conflict in case of a hostile landing, mounted troops

and artillery must almost inevitably be working under such difficulties that only a small proportion of those arms could be profitably employed. In addition to that, quite a third of this army will have to be allocated to sedentary, local defence-a service for which Yeomanry and mobile batteries are scarcely needed. Were the General Staff doing the thing over again, they would almost certainly reduce the total of Yeomanry and of horse and field artillery by from 30 to 40 per cent, and this would proportionately decrease the number of remounts required on mobilisation. But we have to take things as they are, and have to face the problem as it stands.

There is a special point in connection with the Territorial field artillery which deserves a moment's consideration, because it is closely connected with the remounting question. The batteries are at present supposed to be horsed on the same lines as the regular field artillery, i.e., with teams of six light draught horses. This seems to be a mistake, even without taking the question of the comparative scarcity of horses of that particular stamp into consideration. In a fenceintersected country like ours, there is very limited scope for artillery manoeuvring on the

battlefield, rapid movements will seldom if ever be called for, and gun-teams composed of four ordinary heavy farm horses would do all that was required even if the horses were not in really hard condition. Horses of that type are very easily managed even by inexpert riders, and the driving is enormously simplified if the centre horses are eliminated. If the principle of utilising teamsters of this particular class were once admitted, the totalnumber of artillery draught horses required on mobilisation would be decreased by about one-third, and an entirely new source of remount supply-an abundant source- would be tapped. The Clydesdales, which are so numerous in the Lowlands of Scotland, might do especially well for this kind of work; they are hardy animals, and are better movers than the Shire horses and heavy farm horses found south of the Tweed.

It has been already pointed out that the citizen troops enjoy a great advantage over the regulars as regards remounting themselves locally, owing to their being so thoroughly territorialised. Their position in this respect resembles that of troops in first line on the Continent. When the new registration and classification scheme is in full working order, it will probably provide quite effective enough machinery for procuring the horses needed by this category of the land forces in case of war. There will be considerably less urgency in bringing

these troops on to their warfooting than in the case of mobilising the Expeditionary Force, it is not so essential that the animals should be of the best class, and the various units will be carrying out actual purchase around their own headquarters. The measures which are being taken by the military authorities at the present time in connection with the Territorial Army, promise in fact eventually to fulfil the requirements of the situation.

From the foregoing examination of the army horse problem, the following points seem to emerge as worthy of being emphasised :

(1) Some clear indication ought to be given to horse owners as soon as possible that only a reasonable proportion of their horses will be impressed by the military on mobilisation.

(2) The arrangements in connection with horsing the Expeditionary Force should be kept entirely distinct from those in connection with horsing the Territorial Forces.

(3) The problem of filling up the establishment of horses in the artillery of the Expeditionary Force on mobilisation should be taken up just as seriously as the remount question in connection with the cavalry has been taken up.

(4) It should be clearly understood that the plan of purchasing remounts very young can only be justified on the ground that it encourages breeding, and the plan ought