The railways of the country would be divided into sections, and for each section there would be a committee composed of the general managers of the railways included in the section, together with the principal engineers, locomotive superintendents and other chief officers. The railways would be worked and controlled for military purposes by these committees of sections, each committee having as its president a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps, who would be directly responsible for providing transport for troops and stores over the section of which his committee had charge, while if the operation to be carried out required the co-operation of one or more sections of the railways, the committees of those sections would act in unison. In such a case the Quartermaster-General's requisition for the service to be performed would be made upon the president of the section embracing the point of departure, that officer and his committee taking the initiative and arranging with the other committees for the performance of the service. For each section, or group, of railways, a military officer of rank would be appointed, with full power to arrange for food, forage and water for the troops and horses _en route_, and having at his disposal a sufficient number of soldiers or labourers to assist in loading and unloading baggage, stores, etc., at the points of entrainment and detrainment within his section. He would also be able to command the services of the Royal or Volunteer Engineers to assist in the erection of temporary platforms or landings, or the laying down of temporary rails, and would be instructed to co-operate with, and assist in every way, the committee of section having charge of his district, but not in any way to attempt to interfere with the working of the line or the movement of the trains or traffic. The number of sections into which the railways were to be divided for the purposes of this scheme was nine. After defining the various areas, Sir George continued:-- It is contemplated that during any such period of crisis as we are now discussing, the Council of the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps would be sitting _en permanence_ at its headquarters, and, with a full knowledge of the nature and extent of the operations to be carried out, would have power to regulate the supply and distribution of rolling stock throughout the area affected, all the vehicles in the country being, for the time being, treated as a common stock. This is a mere outline of the scheme, with the further details of which it is not necessary to trouble the reader, though probably enough has been said to show that the subject, far from having been neglected, as Colonel Rothwell appears to assume, has been carefully studied and thought out.