physical advancement which this
legislation has given us. Our doctors and schoolmasters and clergymen
have given us full and ample testimony upon these points.

Prior to the passing of the National Defence Act, which guaranteed
military training as a part of the education of every healthy male
subject, the great majority of _The Citizens_ had returned to private
life. Yet, with the exception of some few hundreds of special cases,
every one of _The Citizens_ remained members of the organization. And it
was that fact which provided incessant employment, not alone for John
Crondall and myself, and our headquarters staff, during the progress of
the war, but for our committees throughout the country.

Before reentering private life, every _Citizen_ was personally
interviewed and given the opportunity of being resworn under conditions
of permanent membership. The new conditions applied only to home
defence, but they included specific adherence to our propaganda for the
maintenance of universal military training. They included also a
definite undertaking upon the part of every _Citizen_ to further our
ends to the utmost of his ability, and, irrespective of State
legislation, to secure military training for his own sons, and to abide
by _The Citizens'_ Executive in whatever steps it should take toward
linking up our organization, under Government supervision, with the
regular national defence force of the country.

It should be easy to understand that this process involved a great deal
of work. But it was work that was triumphantly rewarded, for, upon the
passage into law of the Imperial Defence Act, which superseded the
National Defence Act, after the peace had been signed, we were able to
present the Government with a nucleus consisting of a compact working
organization of more than three million British _Citizens_. These
_Citizens_ were men who had undergone training and seen active service.
They were sworn supporters of universal military training, and of a
minimum of military service as a qualification for the suffrage.

All political writers have agreed that the knowledge of what was taking
place in England, with regard to our organization, greatly strengthened
the hands of the Imperial Parliament in its difficult task of framing
and placing upon the Statute Book those two great measures which have
remained the basis of politics and defence throughout the Empire: the
Imperial Defence Act and the Imperial Parliamentary