No praise could be too high for the patriotic and sustained efforts of the county associations or for the quality and efficiency of the territorial troops.  It is a comparatively easy thing to make great efforts and sacrifices under the stress and strain, which we are now experiencing, of a supreme crisis.  The territorials, without any such stimulus in the piping times of peace, when war and the sufferings and the struggles and glories of war were contingent and remote, these men gave their time, sacrificed their leisure—­not only in their annual training, but in thousands of cases both officers and men devoted their spare hours to preparing themselves in the study and the practice of the art of war.  They have now been embodied for two months, and I am expressing the considered opinion of one of the most eminent Generals when I say that the divisions now in camp in various parts of the country, and improving every day in efficiency, have completely justified their title to play any part that may be assigned to them, either in home defense, in the manning of our garrisons, or in the battle lines at the front. [Loud cheers.]

It is, then, no want of appreciation of the patriotism and of the efficiency of the territorial forces that leads me to ask you tonight for recruits for the regular army.  We wish, so far as military exigencies permit, that the new battalions and squadrons and batteries should retain their local associations and their corporate and distinctive national character. [Cheers.] Why, the freedom and the autonomy of the smaller nationalities is one of the great issues of this gigantic contest.

A Welsh Army Corps.

I went a week ago to Dublin to make an appeal to Ireland.  I asked Irishmen then, as I do now, on behalf of the Government and of the War Office, to enlist in and to make up the complement of an Irish army corps.  I repeat that appeal tonight to the men of Wales. [Cheers.] We want that.  We want you to fill up the ranks of the Welsh army corps. [Cheers.] We believe that the preservation of local and national ties, of the genius of a people which has a history of its own, is not only not hostile to or inconsistent with, but, on the contrary, fosters and strengthens and stimulates the spirit of a common purpose, of, a corporate brotherhood, of an underlying and binding imperial unity throughout every section and among all ranks of the forces of the Crown. [Cheers.]

Men of Wales, of whom I see so many thousands in this splendid gathering, let me say one last word to you.  Remember your past. [Cheers.] Think of the villages and the mountains which in old days were the shelter of the recruiting ground of your fathers in the struggles which adorn and glorify your annals.  Never has a stronger or a more compelling appeal been made to you of all that you as a nation honor and hold true.  Be worthy of those who went before you, and leave to your children the richest of all inheritances—­the memory of fathers who in a great cause put self-sacrifice before ease and honor above life itself. [Loud cheers.]