§ The scheme which I proposed to the House last year was denounced by some of my hon. friends and by the Opposition as being impracticable and inapplicable to this country. We have made great progress in applying the Army Corps scheme to the work of three districts. I have been asked questions as to what are the numbers of the First Army Corps now at Aldershot. My withers are unwrung by these questions. I remember it was said before the battle of Borodino that nearly a whole French battalion perished, and when the Emperor, writing the next day, asked the officer why his battalion was not drawn up, the answer was, "They are in the redoubt." If we have not got the First Army Corps at Aldershot it is because we have got the equivalent of four or five Army Corps of Regular troops in South Africa. But the fact that we have not got these precise troops at Aldershot does not mean that we have not got the number. The staff of the First Army Corps are busily engaged in training drafts of Yeomanry to fill up gaps. The scheme itself continues to hold the field, and for this reason. We have been able to establish a standard up to which we are working. Barracks in every district are being built according to the disposition of the Army Corps. The training grounds are being obtained; the cadres have been set up; and, what is more important than anything else, the institution of the Army Corps system has enabled us to begin that process of delegation and decentralisation on which the mind of the War Office is as much set as the mind of the House.