It has been said that our men have not had war service, and that a lieutenant-colonel in command of a battalion in war must have war experience. I examined the list of imperial battalions published in this evening's _Telegram_, as being in South Africa, or told off to be sent there, and I find, after consulting Hart's army list, that out of these thirty-four battalions seventeen are commanded by lieutenant-colonels who have had war service, and the same number by lieutenant-colonels who have never had experience of any kind in active operations. An examination of our militia list of the 1st April last shows that in the seniority lists of lieutenant-colonels there are no less than seventy-six who have the crossed swords before their names, indicating that they have had active service. It seems strange that out of the seventy-six one could not be found sufficiently qualified. Let us send a Canadian contingent entirely our own, and at our own cost. Let us send the best we have, and then let us stand or fall with what they can do on our behalf. I think we can await the result with confidence. Sir Wilfrid Laurier read this letter the same evening, and wrote me at once, asking me to do nothing further on that line, but to meet him at Sir Wm. Mulock's at ten p.m. on Monday evening, the 16th, on his arrival from Bowmanville, and he asked me to get Mr. Willison to come also. On the Monday afternoon the evening papers published a despatch from Ottawa, saying that the British Government had agreed to change their order, and allow the contingent to go as a unit under a Canadian officer. When I met Sir Wilfrid he told me he had received a telegram at Bowmanville to that effect, but was surprised to hear that it had got into the newspapers. He then told me that he had cabled to England on the Saturday evening, the 14th, and had urged strongly that our men should be sent as one corps, and that it had been agreed to. Once more I was under obligations as a Canadian to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in his efforts to maintain the dignity of Canada. The feeling here was that the dividing up our force into companies attached to British regiments was the idea of General Hutton, who had the regular officer's view as to the lack of capacity of colonial militia. The three years' war which followed, with colonial forces side by side with imperial troops, pretty effectually settled the question whether the colonial levies were inferior or not to any of their comrades.