The Spectator at war: Watching the Home Front

From The Spectator, 7 November 1914:

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Matthew Lynn

Spain will regret its 100 per cent expat property tax

We say without hesitation that if every town and urban district and village in England had a Guard formed on the lines of the Mitcham Town Guard, something would have been accomplished that might prove most valuable in the event of invasion.

We shall no doubt be asked by many military critics whether we really believe that these Village and Town Guards, composed of boys under nineteen and middle-aged men from thirty-eight to sixty-five, would be of any sort of use from the military point of view. Our answer is, in the first place, that men who have learned the use of the rifle, and still more have learned how to act together under orders, cannot be regarded as less worth having than citizens who cannot shoot and cannot drill, and have no sort of organization and no leaders.