Sir: At the outset of the war I made a suggestion in your columns for the enrollment of all that surplus of manhood and patriotic feeling which remains after every man available for systematic military operations has been taken. My idea was that comparatively undrilled boys and older men, not sound enough for campaigning, armed with rifles, able to shoot straight with them, and using local means of transport, bicycles, cars, and so forth, would be a quite effective check upon an enemy's scouting, a danger to his supplies, and even a force capable of holding up a raiding advance--more particularly if that advance was poor in horses and artillery, as an overseas raid was likely to be. I suggested, too, that the mere enrollment and arming of the population would have a powerful educational effect in steadying and unifying the spirit of our people. My proposals were received with what seemed even a forced amusement by the "experts." I was told that I knew nothing about warfare, and that the Germans would not permit us to do anything of the sort. The Germans, it seems, are the authorities in these matters, a point I had overlooked. They would refuse to recognize men with only improvised uniforms, they would shoot their prisoners--not that I had proposed that my irregulars should become prisoners--and burn the adjacent villages. This seemed to be an entirely adequate reply from the point of view of the expert mind, and I gathered that the proper rôle for such an able-bodied civilian as myself was to keep indoors while the invader was about and supply him as haughtily as possible with light refreshments and anything else he chose to requisition. I was also reminded that if only men like myself had obeyed their expert advice and worked in the past for national service and the general submission of everything to expert military direction, these troubles would not have arisen. There would have been no surplus of manhood and everything would have gone as smoothly and as well for England as--the Press Censorship. *An Improbable Invasion.*