We must add that Lord Haldane did an injustice, in
our opinion, to the National Service League when he represented it as discouraging young men from joining the Territorials. A considerable proportion of the Territorials are adherents of the National Service League. The League sincerely wants the Territorial Force to be as efficient as possible, and it works for compulsory military training only as an ultimate solution which would be more satisfactory than the best conceivable Force under the present system ever could be. In short, what the National Service League demands is that service in the Territorial Force should in future be universal. They desire, however, that, as in Switzerland, the lad should before being placed in the Territorial Array undergo a short period (four months) of recruit training—that training to be given while he lives at home. No so-called " herding in barracks " is proposed. No public body has ever been so grossly and so systematically misrepresented as the National Service League.
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