their impulses by the rulings of the High Commissioner. It would therefore be thrice foolish to employ them in their own country and among their own people, and such action would imply that we intended to ignore uses to which the younger colonists can be so conveniently put. In South Africa, as in Australasia and in Canada, there is a large army of young men who loaf their hours away in the idleness of an agricultural life rather than seek some trade in the offices of the big cities. They achieve little that is profitable upon their farms, clinging tenaciously to such a livelihood, since it possesses finer natural elements in its intimacy with the life of the veldt than any form of metropolitan activity could give to them. There are, of course, many men who have been driven to the towns through the failure of their holdings, but in this present state of war these especially, and all those others, have answered eagerly to the call for volunteers, and in proving themselves worthy, have rendered excellent services to the State. The great majority of these men would willingly take service in the forces to which the order of the colonel commanding makes reference, and by this we have at hand an army extraordinarily adapted to colonial purposes, and needing only to be called out. Moreover, at a time when the Empire has seen how its various units have hastened to the aid of the Mother-country, would it not be well to create in each colony a permanent militia from the men who have so unanimously come forward; a force which would be to the colonies what the Imperial army is to India, and which would supersede the local defence forces in Australasia, approaching in its conception a fixed soldiery rather than one to which is given a certain number of exercises in the year? There would be no lack of numbers in any of the colonies, and in Africa we could make use of the Zulu, the Matabele, and the Cape Boys. We have long rested in fancied security, and not until China falls a prey to Russia and India passes from us, need we fear that Australasia can be taken from us by the combined fleets of the Powers of Europe; nevertheless, since we must reorganise our army, it would be no mean policy to place, once and for all, upon their true foundation the defences of our colonies.