And now I am going to tread on delicate ground. We have all our little idiosyncrasies, and gunners are not without theirs. They will have nothing to say to the Vickers-Maxim. "It is a toy and not a gun," I have heard many a gunner declare. But I contend that we have never used it properly. Lord Dundonald's galloping Maxim was intended to accompany cavalry. Why not have a galloping "pom-pom"? It can be brought into action with great speed, it has a great range, and everybody will agree that it is a most accurate gun. It would have been most useful against the Boers when they fled from Poplar Grove, and its effect upon a battery coming into action is not to be despised, as the gallant T Battery will testify from their experiences at Driefontein. Again, its use on kopjes held by cavalry pending the arrival of infantry would surely be beneficial. It has a demoralising effect; even more so than a percussion shrapnel, and our enemy in the present campaign is particularly susceptible to demoralisation when operating in open ground. One of the difficulties with which the artillery in the present campaign has had to contend has been to find out the extent of our infantry advance for which they are preparing with a bombardment. As the Mauser and Lee-Metford render early cover necessary for infantry, it has come about that our infantry, while seeking to render itself invisible to the enemy, has succeeded in making itself almost entirely invisible to our supporting artillery. On many occasions our artillery has ceased fire long before it was necessary, because it became impossible to tell how far our advance extended, for no artillery officer--and rightly so--will run the risk of inflicting damage on his own infantry. The remedy for this state of things has yet to be discovered. In making public opinions such as these--the opinions of a mere layman--I should feel inclined to make some kind of apology, knowing as I do that they are liable to be read by men whose whole life is devoted to the practice as well as the theory of the use of artillery in the field, were it not for the fact that I am optimistic enough to believe that my remarks will provoke criticism. I am aware that the British officer is not much given to rushing into print, but I am also convinced that he will not sit tamely by when heresies are propagated. If, therefore, the views I have enounced are unsound and unpractical, it is his bounden duty to contradict them. And in doing so he will probably contribute his own views, which will undoubtedly receive far greater attention, from the fact that they are set forth by men actually serving in the field, than if they are kept back till the end of the war, when a successful issue will probably bring with it apathy on the part of those in whose hands rest the destinies of the British Army. * * * * * THE NEW MACHINE GUN.