These, briefly, are the facts on which an estimate may be formed of the degree of preparedness reached by the Territorial Force more than six years after it came into being. Very happily, as we said above, this period was thus protracted. The defects were serious enough, but, had the crisis come earlier, Associations would have missed what the evidence of results proved to be valuable, that varied experience of organization, that knowledge of their own weak points, that sense of contact with officers and men, as well in their civilian relations as in their military capacity, and, generally, that power, essential to the satisfactory working of ‘a highly complex structure o’ various an’ conflictin’ strains,’ which Mr. Kipling has illustrated in his story of _The Ship that Found Herself_. The consolation administered by the Prime Minister to the deputation of November, 1913, though a commonplace, or because it was a commonplace, was justified in the succeeding years of war: ‘While we do not say that the present organization is in all respects satisfactory, we do believe that it is based on sound lines, and, so long as the same spirit which has existed from the beginning continues to animate officers and men, that the Force will increase every year in efficiency and capacity for the special functions which are assigned to it in our scheme of defence.’ The vista of years was contracted to less than one, our ‘scheme of defence’ was unrecognizably extended, but the animating spirit did not fail.