time to allow the expeditionary force to leave these shores on the days desired, or in order that the home force, Regular or Territorial, may successfully resist or speedily smash an invader.

STATUTORY POWERS REQUIRED FOR COLLECTION

I feel confident that there is only one way of doing so, which is to lay the onus on owners of sending their horses as notified to a given place on a certain date, and this should preferably be before purchase (in other words, for that object) and not afterwards, thus saving time in both purchase and collection.

Of course the Army Act would have to be altered accordingly. It may be considered that this would be objectionable to the average horse-owner, but there is every reason to believe that the country still contains a majority of patriotic inhabitants who would, apart from compulsion by law, be only too willing to assist the military authorities at a time of great stress and emergency; to these such a law would seem, when they understand the reason for it, to be only fitting and right; to the other sort, rather more than persuasion is imperative.

In any case, if reliance is to be placed on the due collection of animals this additional power is necessary for the proper working of the Impressment Act; our forces must now be mobilised with the same speed as are those of Continental Powers, who all, including Switzerland, recognise the necessity of this mode of purchase and collection when the crucial period of mobilisation arrives; it is difficult to see how we can act differently, though the burden might be lightened by payment of so much per horse for the trouble or expense of delivery to the selected centre of the district.

COLLECTING STATIONS

These centres or 'collecting stations' should be fixed by the responsible officer allotted to the county or area, who, from his thorough knowledge of the geography of his area, its inhabitants and horses, would be able to make adequate arrangements; the duties of this officer, which are multifarious, I propose to deal with later.

From the collecting centre, which would probably be close to a railway station, the horses would be despatched by road or by rail to the place of mobilisation' to which they have been told off at headquarters; in some cases, of course, the collecting station can be conveniently fixed at a 'place of mobilisation.' If it were considered desirable to send some horses by road, it could be done by civilian assistance or by military sent from their 'place of mobilisation,' but all this should be arranged in peace time. At each place of mobilisation' there should be a small depôt in which the horses can be received; this would be in charge of an officer (specially chosen for his fitness by the officer com

manding the troops there) whose duty it would be to detail the horses as they arrive to the various units composing that particular command, the units sending their respective parties to take them over when ordered.

To make my meaning clear as to the mode suggested of getting horses to their particular units, a matter of considerable importance, I must beg leave to recapitulate the steps which lead up to it. Orders are sent from the War Office to the general officers commanding-in-chief, detailing the various troops mobilising in the command, the day on which they must be mobilised, and the place of mobilisation.' The officer responsible for the work at headquarters figures out the number of horses required (according to their class) at each of the abovementioned places. After certain steps have been taken, which I have attempted to describe before, he details to the remount officers in charge of counties or areas the numbers of each class of horse that have to be provided and their destination. It must be remembered that these last-named officers will probably on mobilisation be purchasers themselves as well as having a host of other matters to attend to, so that the simpler and less confusing their task is made the better, and the same remark applies to the assistant purchasers; therefore, the final work of apportioning horses to units is preferably done on the spot-namely, at the 'place of mobilisation,' where a sufficient number of riding, artillery, engineer, and transport horses, as the case may be, should arrive for the various units.

RAILWAY ARRANGEMENTS TO BE SETTLED IN PEACE TIME

When the location of collecting stations has been fixed, and the number of horses that will have to be despatched from them by rail has been settled, arrangements should be made with the railway companies for their transit to their destinations, so that everything will, as far as possible, be in order when the time of mobilisation arrives. These arrangements are matters affecting the assistant quartermaster-general of the command, and consequently must be referred to him, after due consideration by the remount officer in charge of the county or area, and the officer at command headquarters who is responsible for horse mobilisation.

So far we have considered the steps to be taken in peace time (i.e. census, classification, purchase, collection, and transit), without doing more than suggest, in certain cases, who the agents for carrying out the work should be; this course has been taken so that an idea can be formed of the amount and the particular kind of work that the various steps entail, and hence the special

abilities which should be possessed by the agents who carry them out. It may be concluded, especially with regard to the expeditionary force, that the classifiers and purchasers must have thorough knowledge and judgment of horses; and that, besides the above, the officer who is responsible for the making and the working of the machinery in each county or area should have military training and some idea of organisation.

Looking ahead to eventual mobilisation of the expeditionary force and the rapidity with which it must be carried out, I do not think that more than 1000 horses can properly be controlled by one officer and his subordinates-that is, outside London and the very large towns. Indeed, the work of classifying 1000 horses suitable for the expeditionary force, in addition to superintendence over those required by the Territorial forces in the same area, will be as much as this officer and his staff can well manage, for it must be borne in mind that in order to get 1000 suitable horses classified, stables representing 7000 horses, or possibly considerably more, will have to be visited.

REMOUNT STAFF

We will now venture to suggest the means by which the machinery is to be made and set in motion.

There should be a remount officer, or deputy assistant director of remounts, attached to each county, riding, part of a county, or two small counties, that are probably capable of producing 1500 suitable horses in addition to their Territorial requirements.

In some counties, of course, there are many more horses than in others, and it sometimes happens that their Territorial requirements are smaller, but this does not alter the main point that one man (the directing head) and his subordinates can, for the purpose of rapid mobilisation, only control a certain number of animals, spread out as they are over a large area; the remaining horses, if any, will come in later as reserve.

DUTIES OF D.A.D.R.

The deputy assistant director of remounts who is appointed to the area as above mentioned should possess the qualities that have been shown to be desirable for classification, purchase, and organisation; he must, of course, live in the county or area, and have his headquarters at a convenient centre; residence in the county is absolutely essential, with a view to acquiring thorough knowledge of the individuals who are likely to be of assistance to him, as well as learning the geography of the county and its supply of horses, and, lastly, to keeping in touch with the civil authority. The main duties of this officer would be:

1. To be responsible for classification over the entire county or area, including the Territorial force.

2. To render complete classification returns to headquarters of the command.

3. To notify owners of the number and class of horse they must bring forward for purchase on mobilisation.

4. To fix centres or collecting stations to which owners are to bring horses.

5. To recommend the mode of delivery to 'places of mobilisation,' by rail or road as the case may be, to headquarters of the command.

6. To make arrangements for purchase and entrainment of horses in the time allowed for mobilisation.

All the above work would be carried out under instructions from headquarters of the command.

Comments on the duties defined above:

(1) Classification.-Classification for the Territorial forces in the county would be done by the adjutants for their own units under guidance of the deputy assistant director of remounts, to whom they would render the classification returns. The yeomanry and artillery adjutants will each have a considerable number of horses to classify, and should, from their experience of horses, be capable of producing the stamp of horse to suit their respective regiments or brigades. Some infantry adjutants possess quite as much knowledge of horses as do those of the mounted branches, and are well able to classify the horses they require for their regiments; others, naturally, have had nothing or little to do with horses all their lives. Under these circumstances it would appear to be a matter for the commanding officer of the regiment to settle as to whether his adjutant or another officer of his battalion should do the work of classification; in any case there are not many horses required, and the majority of them are of the transport class.

With regard to classification of horses for the Expeditionary force, it has been already pointed out how necessary it is that animals which are sent overseas should be suitable in every way, and that consequently the work should be carried out by experts in matters pertaining to the horse. The deputy assistant director of remounts appointed to the county or area should do the work himself, assisted, if he thinks it necessary, by one or two local gentlemen chosen by himself who would be good enough to give their services; retired officers living in the district would be the most desirable, or, if they were not forthcoming, an officer specially detailed and carefully chosen for the work from the command. The work should be done with as much despatch. as possible, so that the arrangements dependent on it (notifying owners, fixing collecting stations, etc.) can be considered without delay. In towns and other places where horses are close together

a much larger number can be classified in a day than in country districts, where I do not think that more than fifteen suitable animals, on an average, would be found by one man per diem; that is, fifteen horses which will, in all probability, be available and suitable till the next year's classification takes place. The work will take probably two months or more, according to the number of horses remaining for a reserve after the first requirements of mobilisation have been classified.

(2) Returns. This would consist of a summary of horses classified for the Territorial forces, and a list of those classified for the expeditionary force, plus reserve for same.

(3) Notification to Owners.-Owners should be informed by letter of the number and class of horses, according to their entry in the returns, that they will have to provide; also of the place to which they are to be sent, and of any other matters on which it may be deemed desirable to give instructions.

(4) Collecting Stations.-The country is so intersected by railways that the collecting stations' can generally be placed near to or at a convenient spot for entrainment, in addition to being at a centre to which owners can easily send their horses; the collecting station should be thus placed, or be at or within a short march of a place of mobilisation'; the matter requires careful consideration by the deputy assistant director of remounts, who should have gained knowledge of the roads and country during his journeys on classification duty. Should the collecting station be at or near the place of mobilisation,' units from there will send men to take over their horses forthwith.

The majority of horses will have to be sent by rail; in this case there must be a sufficient staff of men to care for the horses until such time as they can be entrained (which should be done with the least delay possible), and for putting them in the railway trucks; for this work it would probably be most convenient to employ civilians engaged locally, as it would be somewhat difficult to send men from the various units to the collecting stations at a time when railways and the military element would all be working at high pressure; it would, in fact, be simpler, and cause less confusion. This work of looking after the horses might also, to suggest another method, be carried out by men belonging to the yeomanry of the county, if such were not being mobilised at the same time as the regular forces.

(5) Method of Delivery.-This has been dealt with in the remarks above, but the necessary orders must emanate from headquarters of the command.

(6) Purchase. It has been urged before that the quickest method of acquiring animals is by compelling owners to send the horses required of them to the collecting stations for purchase, a