share, [cheers,] and our primary
business is to fill the ranks. There is, I find, in some quarters an
apprehension that the recruiting for the new army and the functions to
be assigned to that army when it is formed and trained may interfere
with or may in some way belittle or disparage the territorial force.
Believe me, no delusion could be more mischievous or more complete.

No praise could be too high for the patriotic and sustained efforts of
the county associations or for the quality and efficiency of the
territorial troops. It is a comparatively easy thing to make great
efforts and sacrifices under the stress and strain, which we are now
experiencing, of a supreme crisis. The territorials, without any such
stimulus in the piping times of peace, when war and the sufferings and
the struggles and glories of war were contingent and remote, these men
gave their time, sacrificed their leisure--not only in their annual
training, but in thousands of cases both officers and men devoted their
spare hours to preparing themselves in the study and the practice of the
art of war. They have now been embodied for two months, and I am
expressing the considered opinion of one of the most eminent Generals
when I say that the divisions now in camp in various parts of the
country, and improving every day in efficiency, have completely
justified their title to play any part that may be assigned to them,
either in home defense, in the manning of our garrisons, or in the
battle lines at the front. [Loud cheers.]

It is, then, no want of appreciation of the patriotism and of the
efficiency of the territorial forces that leads me to ask you tonight
for recruits for the regular army. We wish, so far as military
exigencies permit, that the new battalions and squadrons and batteries
should retain their local associations and their corporate and
distinctive national character. [Cheers.] Why, the freedom and the
autonomy of the smaller nationalities is one of the great issues of this
gigantic contest.

A Welsh Army Corps.

I went a week ago to Dublin to make an appeal to Ireland. I asked
Irishmen then, as I do now, on behalf of the Government and of the War
Office, to enlist in and to make up the complement of an Irish army
corps. I repeat that appeal tonight to the men of Wales. [Cheers.] We
want that. We want you to fill up the ranks of the Welsh army corps.
[Cheers.] We believe that the preservation of local and national ties,
of the g