field, should be thus
checked and possibly discouraged, or that the completion of this
training should be hampered owing to lack of arms. We have now happily
reached a period when it can be said that this drawback has been
surmounted, and that the troops in training can be supplied with
sufficient arms and material to turn them out as efficient soldiers.

When the great rush of recruiting occurred in August and September of
last year, there was a natural difficulty in finding accommodation for
the many thousands who answered to the call for men to complete the
existing armed forces and the New Armies. Now, however, I am glad to
say we have throughout the country provided accommodation calculated
to be sufficient and suitable for our requirements. Further, there was
in the early autumn a very natural difficulty in clothing and
equipping the newly raised units. Now we are able to clothe and equip
all recruits as they come in, and thus the call for men is no longer
restricted by any limitations, such as the lack of material for
training.

It is an axiom that the larger an army is, the greater is its need of
an ever-swelling number of men of recruitable age to maintain it at
its full strength; yet, at the very same time the supply of those very
men is automatically decreasing. Nor must it be forgotten that the
great demand which has arisen for the supply of munitions, equipment,
etc., for the armed forces of this country and of our Allies also, as
well as the economic and financial necessity of keeping up the
production of manufactured goods, involves the retention of a large
number of men in various trades and manufactures, many of whom would
otherwise be available for the Colors. In respect of our great and
increasing military requirements for men, I am glad to state how much
we are indebted to the help given to the Recruiting Staff of the
Regular Army and to the Territorial Associations throughout the
country by the many Voluntary Recruiting Committees formed in all the
counties and cities, and in many important boroughs for this purpose.

The public has watched with eager interest the growth and the rapidly
acquired efficiency of the New Armies, whose dimensions have already
reached a figure which only a short while ago would have been
considered utterly unthinkable. (Cheers.) But there is a tendency,
perhaps, to overlook the fact that these larger armies require still
larger reserves, to make good the wastage at th