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 counties in the United Kingdom, are thus identified with their representative contribution to the defence of the whole nation. Officers and men organized on this principle bring to their corps all the cohesion, feeling of comradeship, and local association, which are so essential for insuring the highest standard of discipline in the field and of gallantry before the enemy. Each corps is thus not only representative of its own province, State, or county, but also of its own special district and of its own particular community. Each individual soldier feels that upon him rests, in bivouac and in battle, the responsibility of adequately representing his friends and kinsmen, and of doing honour to his own name and to the fair reputation of his own countryside.

There will be many, no doubt, who will question the military value of a Militia thus raised, who will query their cohesion and discipline, will query their degree of training and efficiency, and will even query their steadiness and gallantry in action. To such a careful study, among others, of the War of the American Revolution (1776–1783) is suggested. 'Taking into consideration,' says Sir Charles Trevelyan, the latest historian of this period, 'the quality of the regular British Army opposed to them, some of their feats have seldom been surpassed except in legendary warfare.' When they failed, a want of a satisfactory organization, an absence of qualified leaders, and a deficiency in equipment, will usually be found to be the causes. It was the Canadian Militia in 1812 who almost single-handed, in the absence of the Regular Army, not only held the Southern Frontier successfully, but carried the war into the enemy's country. The fighting value of the vast armies engaged in the American War of Secession, more closely resembling a National Militia than a Regular Army, has never been questioned. Their early failures were due to lack of initial organization, of military training, and