THE IMPERIAL ARMY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8139, 14 May 1906, Page 7

THE IMPERIAL ARMY.

The efficiency of the Army should sorely be a subject upon whioh approximate argeement might be expected from the experts; but it must be confessed that the recbgnised authorities give the layman very little assistance in arriving at a conclusion. Dr Miller Maguire, for instance, declares that the British Army is praotioally useless. The cost of the Army in 1904 was about £46,000,000. "For this sum," says Dr Maguire, "we were provided with the most

INEFFICIENT MILITARY MACHINE conceivable, without guna, and discontented to a degree. Officers and men complained that their careers were being wasted; not 60,000 men were fit to take the field, and the armanent and equipment were in no resDeot equal to that of any second-rate Power. Not one man, from general to lance-corporal, had the least confidence in his political employers." On the other hand, Mr Howard Hensman, having CONSULTED MANY GENERALS on the active list, declares quite as emphatically tuat the British Army was never in a higher state of effi oiency. The whole of the troops likely to be required to support the Indian Army in the defence of Innia could put to sea in a month from the first alarm, and that is regarded aa being a fair indication of the promptitude with which any danger could' be met. Then no other army gives the ATTENTION TO MUSKETRY

that is demanded of the British force. The new guns for the Horse and Field Artillery, says Mr Hensman, will very shortly be delivered, and those who have had an opportunity of examining these weapons declare them to be the very, best of their kind in existence. So favourable has been the ' GENERAL REPORT upon them that France is about to seek farther' improvements for her field gone. The new shortened rifle is now being issued, and has been severely criticised. At the School «f Musketry at Hythe, however, the ririe has been testediri every manner possible, and the staff there is unanimous in Its praise. The War Office approval has been confirmed during the last few days by the feuo-

oess of marksman shooting with the new rifle at Bisley. Greatly added interest has been given to tne discussion of these questions, of course, by Mr Le Queux's sensational new story of the invasion of England.