For many months the Spectator advocated the creation of a
National Register and the application of the principle of the quota. The Register has been made, and there at least seems a much better chance than before that the next step in the Government programme will prove to be that which we have so long recommended. We earnestly ask for the application of what may be called the last hope of voluntaryism, not because we prefer voluntaryism to National Service—quite the reverse, of course—but because, so long as the Government are determined to depend on voluntaryism, we want to see them exercising it in the most scientific and effectual way. After all the exemptions of men who are serving the State more usefully as civilians than as soldiers had been carefully made, the quota of recruits required from each district— calculated according to the number of non-exempted men of military age—would be announced. Compulsion would only follow upon failure. It would be "up to" the true supporters of voluntaryism to save their system.
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