LOOKING AHEAD
SIR,—Almost every day we see or hear that appointments are made to good substantial junior jobs in public or private concerns while many who might have been applicants are out of the country. Do we well? The young professional men in the Services may be few in number, and may command no important Parliamentary vote, but they do represent a part of our national capital. They left us 'prentice boys, and now, scattered over the globe, they read their local and professional papers and find their office and college mates of four or five years ago forging ahead and gaining promotion or academic distinction. They wonder— wistfully and possibly a little bitterly. They will return to us men, men knowing good and evil, tired but still ready to be enthusiastic about any work in which they can take pride, seeking a home and an income. Imbued with the team spirit of the Services, they will be prepared to fit into the framework where their contemporaries are firmly established. They will look for a fair field and no favour, and they will be puzzled and then chilled by our petty dignities and jealousies. Later there may creep in a sense of frustration and even of injustice.
We older men will find their views a little too leftist to be quite acceptable. Our work must go on, and, after all, the men here on the spot with their day to day knowledge are more efficient than those who have been away four or five years. Yet efficiency is not a Way of Life, and what a man is is more than day to day knowledge. Some of the answers I think I know, and some individual efforts have been made to imple- ment them.
(i) Let every ex-Service man have the right to a vocational refreshef course of his own choice, for say six months.
(2) Educate and activate public opinion, not only the other fellow's, but also our own.
(3) Let every appointment made, from now onwards, be declared open again, say two years after the cessation of hostilities. But these are not complete answers, nor I think is any concerted action being taken. How can we best be prepared to welcome the men of the Forces when they come back, and restore the years that the locust bath eaten?—I am, Sir, yours faithfully, W. B. G. Mous. 16 Glebe Crescent, Stirling.
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