other day up and down the slopes of a Surrey hill which when I knew it
last was one kingdom of purple heather, beloved of the honey-bees, and
scarcely ever trodden by man or woman. Barracks now form long streets upon
its crest and sides; practise-trenches, bombing-schools, the stuffed and
dangling sacks for bayonet training, musketry ranges, and the rest, are
everywhere. Tennyson, whose wandering ground it once was, would know it no
more. And this camp is only one of a series which spread far and wide
round the Aldershot headquarters.

Near my own home, a park and a wooded hillside, that two years ago were
carefully guarded even from a neighbour's foot, are now occupied by a
large town of military huts, which can be seen for miles round. And
fifteen miles away, in a historic "chase" where Catharine of Aragon lived
while her trial was proceeding in a neighbouring town, a duke, bearing one
of the great names of England, has himself built a camp, housing 1,200
men, for the recruits of his county regiments alone, and has equipped it
with every necessary, whether for the soldier's life or training. But
everywhere--East, North, South, and West--the English and Scotch roads are
thronged with soldiers and horses, with trains of artillery wagons and
Army Service lorries, with men marching back from night attacks or going
out to scout and skirmish on the neighbouring commons and through the most
sacred game--preserves. There are no more trespass laws in England--for
the soldier.

You point to our recruiting difficulties in Parliament. True enough. We
have our recruiting difficulties still. Lord Derby has not apparently
solved the riddle; for riddle it is, in a country of voluntary service,
where none of the preparations necessary to fit conscription into ordinary
life, with its obligations, have ever been made. The Government and the
House of Commons are just now wrestling with it afresh, and public opinion