24 JANUARY 1914, Page 3

In connexion with the advertising of the Army, Colonel Leveson-Gower

sends a pertinent letter to Monday's Times. Being in a position to provide permanent employment for several ex-soldiers, he receives weekly visits from Reservists, "many of them utterly destitute." Their Army characters vary from exemplary to good, but the tale is always the same. They wore not allowed to stay in the Army, and once out of it they have no chance against civilian competitors. Again, a stationmaster consulted him about buying his son out of a cavalry regiment, because he would never be able to get the son a job if the latter served his time. Finally, he narrates his experience in a Government office, where, on his asking a man with three medals if he were the porter, the man replied, " ' No such luck, Sir ; I'm only the " sweeper " [the Indian phrase for the lowest caste]; the porter was —'s naming an ex-Minister." This, adds Colonel Leveson-Gower, "is the artual advertisement that the Army gets daily by thousands of men all over England." There is no use in

treating men well in the Service so long as the State abandons them the moment they leave it. A guaranteed future is the one thing to make the new advertisements effective.