TOPICS OF THE DAY.
NATIONAL SERVICE BY CONSENT.
WHY should not the two great political parties settle the problem of national service and universal training by agreement between themselves as is suggested by a correspondent in our issue of to-day? No doubt by the use of a little sophistry and a good deal of rhetoric they can be represented as so hopelessly divided upon the question as to render any agreement impossible. The Radical on the platform, and on the look-out for a party advantage, will ask how is it possible to come to a compromise with men who want "to rivet the burdens of militarism and conscription on the backs of the working classes in order that they may indulge in wild projects of conquest and aggression on the Continent"? How can those who desire to live in peace and amity with the whole world make terms with the advocates of war ? Again, the militant Unionist, also keen to secure a platform point, is inclined to talk about men who love all countries but their own—who would accept any national humiliation and run any risks rather than make even the slight sacrifice involved in universal training—who are so poor-spirited or so blind that they do not realize that it is part of every freeman's duty to learn how to protect his life, his liberty, his home, and his country. In reality, however, neither side at heart believes its own platform platitudes on this question. Liberals and Unionists, when not intoxicated with the heady wine of rhetoric, know that on the fundamentals of national defence we are all agreed, and that what divides us is the means, not the end. We all want to make the country safe from invasion, whether by a raid or by armed forces planned for absolute conquest, by the timely pro- vision of military power. There is, we venture to say, no one in this country willing or, shall we say, with sufficient nerve to trust absolutely to what Cromwell called "the great ditch," and the ability of our fleet to prevent any other Power commanding that ditch. In theory naval defence may be our only essential defence. In theory it may be possible to prove that military defence would be totally useless if our naval defence proved inadequate. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to find anybody who will say that no soldiers whatever are wanted within the country or will advocate the abolition of a Home Defence Army. All are in favour of insuring the nation in the military as well as in the naval insurance company. While they admit that the fleet is, and must remain, our chief insurance, they are one and all for re-insurance in some shape or other in the second office. The only point of dispute is, what should be the nature and amount of this second or precautionary insurance ? Beyond this businesslike feeling there is yet another which affects the minds of most Englishmen. The moment they are confronted with the idea that it might be quite possible for them to possess a Navy so large and so powerful that not the slightest pre- paration for repelling the invader need he made in this country, they recognize that there would. be something essentially ignoble in this position. A nation which deliberately said it would trust to hiring big ships, and that no section of its people need ever trouble about learning to defend their native land, would be a doomed nation. Though we trust to the police to defend us from burglars, every man worthy of the name feels that he must also be prepared to defend his home himself. In the same way the nation as a whole feels that ultimate security is not to be hired but must come from within.
The policy, then, of National Service is not one to which any section of the nation is, or ever can be, essentially opposed. It is only a question of a little more or a little less, or of the best way of doing what all agree to be neces- sary. Hitherto the majority of Liberals, though by no means all, and a considerable section of Unionists, have felt that our Territorial Force would be sufficient for all pur- poses of home defence. This belief in its sufficiency is, however, disappearing. We have never been among those who have attacked or in any way belittled our Territorial Army. We believe, indeed, that it is composed of very sound material, that a portion of it is by no means inefficient, and that the nation owes a deep debt of gratitude to those who have so patriotically come for- ward under great difficulties to serve their country. Un- fortunately, it is becoming more and more apparent that our Territorial Army is not large enough for the purpose for which it was designed, or rather let us say that that portion of the Territorial Army which is efficient for military purposes is not nearly large enough, and could not be made large enough during the period of crisis which must almost certainly arise at the beginning of a war. The Balkan war has shown us that though wars may drag on for a very considerable time, the decisive danger-point is reached very quickly. Next it is clear that there is very little chance of our Terri- torial Army becoming larger and more efficient than it is. It is not something of which we can say, "Give it time and it will grow into all that the nation requires." On the contrary, there is too much reason to believe that the effort to raise it to its present pitch cannot be main- tained, and that things are destined to become worse, and very considerably worse, and not better. That beinc, so, the nation must soon find that it is doing the most stupid thing in the world. It is making inadequate preparations for an admitted risk. To buy and maintain a fire engine which will not throw water on to your roof, to buy a gun which is more than likely to miss fire if you try to fire it, or to keep a motor-car which, short of a miracle, will not get up the hill which it must ascend if it is to be of any use to the owner, are all acts of sheer folly. It is far better not to possess any of these things than to spend money upon them when we know that they are inadequate. It would be in every way wiser to save the three millions which we spend on the Territorial Army than to spend it each year on something which cannot do the work which that army is designed to do.
We would ask our readers, and especially our Liberal readers, to consider what are the proposals of those who, like ourselves, advocate national service and universal training, and then attempt to meet the objections to them. Let us first, however, see what the advocates of national service do not propose. (1) They do not propose a conscript army in the Continental sense, or anything in the least like it. (2) They do not propose to make military training and service compulsory in any force which can be ordered out of this country. (3) They do not propose, even for home defence, to "herd men together in barracks for two or three years." What they do propose is to enrol the whole of the youth of this country in a force like the Swiss militia, except that the Swiss militia can theoretically be ordered out of Switzerland to fight in foreign countries, whereas the Territorial Army proposed by the National Service League could not be so ordered out of Britain. In effect the advocates of National Service would leave the framework of the Territorial Army as it is. All they would do would be to fill its ranks by making it obligatory on every Englishman, not physically unfit, to serve in that army for four years and to be liable to serve in a reserve for another ten years, which reserve would, however, only be called out in case of invasion. Service in the Territorial Army would mean, as now, a fortnight in camp in each year.
To make this force efficient in training as it would be in numbers it is proposed that every Englishman between the ages of, say, seventeen and eighteen, should do a. recruit training of four months for the infantry, or for a somewhat longer period if he elected to join the cavalry, the artillery, or the engineers. This recruit training would not be given in barracks, but under what we may call a "Home Boys" system.. A young man would go to be trained in arms as he went when he was younger to be trained in reading, writing, and arithmetic at school. But it will be said, How about the country lads, for you cannot give military training to groups of ten or twelve ? We agree. Such country lads would have, as in Norway, to go to certain selected centres to be trained, but there is no reason why they should live in barracks. The Government might quite well arrange for them to go as lodgers, or when that was not possible they might be placed under canvas or in huts. Lodgings, however, would be the most economical arrange- ment, and they would generally be obtainable. The Govern- ment would find it far cheaper to pay 10s. a week for board and lodging and such an arrangement would be anything but unpopular. Probably also, where lads contributed to the household funds, it would be necessary for the Govern. ment, during the period of recruit training, to treat them as lodging with their parents. A working-class lad of seventeen living at home usually pays his mother 10s. a week out of his wages, and she would probably expect that amount while the boy was doing his recruit training. When this recruit training was over, the lad would pass into the Territorials as now constituted under a four years' enlistment, unless he elected to join the Regulars or the Marines or the Special Reserve, or, say, the Consta- bulary. Incidentally we may say that we believe that by this means recruiting for the Line would be not only stimulated, but greatly improved in quality, and that the expense of the depots would also be enormously reduced. Thanks to the universal recruit training, those who joined the Regulars could go straight to their regiments. For ourselves we do not see why the normal period of four months' training should not in a great many cases be reduced. For example, if a boy came from a secondary school or a continuation school and had there obtained a first-class certificate of drill—the standard would have to be high— and a first-class certificate as a rifle shot, we do not see why his recruit training should not be reduced to one month, and that month the month under canvas, which should in all cases be the final month of the recruit training. Second-class certificates for drill and shooting might, again, reduce the training to two months and so save the nation a good deal. Finally, we would allow any lad who liked to take a seven months' course (six months' recruit training and one additional month under canvas), and then pass from that training straight into the Reserve. The object of this plan would be to meet the case of lads taking up work which for some reason or another would make it difficult for them to go into camp. even for a fortnight in the year. They would pay for exemption by a double recruit training. Our experience of the Spectator Experimental Company showed that six months, and therefore more certainly seven months, grounded a young man so well in the military art that he would not for many years forget either his drill or his shooting, and might pass at once into the Reserve. It would be wise, however, to insist on the seven-months men appearing once a year at a county assembly.
We have roughly sketched what National Service really means. Now can anyone doubt that the two millions of armed men which such a system might ultimately provide would produce that adequate provision against invasion which at heart we all desire ? Of course it would. No one would want to enter such a hornet's nest. Next, can anyone doubt that our young men would morally and intellectually as well as physically benefit by this training, and also that it would be specially beneficial to classes which now get no discipline or regular physical training of any sort ? Do not let our readers imagine that by this we mean the working classes. We do not. We mean the larger half of the comfortable class. As a letter we recently published in the Spectator shows, the richer classes as a whole get at present no military training at all, because owing to a caste prejudice, which we cannot too strongly deprecate and denounce, they refuse to enter the Territorial ranks as they used to enter the old Volun- teers. The Territorial Army, if we except one or two regiments in London, contains practically no public-school boys. To put the matter very plainly, we should be very glad to take these young gentlemen, i.e., persons who think themselves too good to train side by side with the sons of artisans, by the scruff of the neck and force them into the Territorials, as they are very properly forced in Switzer- land. It would do them a great deal of good in every way, and teach them not to despise their equals. Remember there would be no nonsense about billets being found for them as officers. It is part of the policy of the National Service League that no man should qualify for an officer who had not been through the recruit training as a private. Of course an officer would have to do a great deal in addition to that training, but he would only reach the position of officer through the ranks. Next, we would ask whether anyone really supposes that such a system as we propose would produce the evils of militarism, either individually in the young man or in the nation as a whole? We fully admit that to herd young men together in barracks for two years does produce great evils, but none of these evils flows from the Swiss system, and remember, it is the Swiss system, and not the French or German system, that we are advocating. As to political militarism, can anyone believe that men who know that they may be forced to fight if it comes to war are likely to be more Jingo than those who have the comfortable feeling that they are going to watch the exciting drama of war from the stalls or the pit, and that come what may they will not have to take any part in it themselves ?
We shall be told, of course, that the British elector would never agree to let himself be " enslaved " and "forced under a military yoke," and so on, and so on. To this we can only answer that we do not agree. In the first place the British elector is not going to be asked to put himself under this terrible yoke, for the very good reason that he is too old. We realize that under our industrial system it would be very objectionable to take men over twenty-one, that is, after they have settled down to work. We must catch them for their recruit training earlier and before they get permanent jobs. Therefore what we are asking the elector to do is to agree that his sons between seventeen and eighteen shall have the tremendous physical and moral advantages that come from a military training and from learning discipline, not in a servile sense, but in the sense of active and spontaneous co-operation with others. The working man knows enough about discipline to know that it would be a great advantage to his sons to get that physical training. What he would never agree to, but what he is never going to be asked to agree to, is that his son should be forced to go into the Regular Army and be liable for foreign service. When he realizes that it is a case of simply making all classes join the Territorials, and, before they join, teaching them their work, we have not the least fear that he will say No.
Next, we are sure to be confronted with the question : How about those men who have a conscientious objection to all forms of fighting ? Our answer is a short one. If there are any persons who honestly object to being trained in the use of arms to repel invasion and to defend their country, we would most assuredly respect that conscien- tious objection, however mistaken. We would allow any lad who liked to go before a magistrate and declare on oath that it was contrary to his conscience or con- victions to be trained in the use of arms for the defence of his country to receive an exemption certificate. Farther, if both parents made a similar declaration, even if the son himself would not, we would exempt the son as long as he was living under the paternal roof. Remember there is no novelty here. Under the old compulsory Militia system of National Service Quakers could claim exemption. We do not, however, think that any considerable number of people would avail themselves of this conscience clause in order to seek exemption when at heart they did not entertain conscientious objections. The men of bona-fide Quaker views would clearly be small in number. If, however, it was shown by experience that men were unfairly making use of the conscience clause, it would be quite easy to insist that they should serve in the Army Medical Corps or the Red Cross detachments. No one could have a conscientious objection to tending the sick and wounded.
We desire to close with a specific suggestion. Why should not there be a conference of political leaders on the whole matter? Why should not the Prime Minister and four Liberal statesmen and the Leader of the Opposition and four Unionist statesmen discuss the problem and see if they could not devise a scheme which would give us what we want without raising a party scuffle ? After all there are plenty of ways of doing the thing needful, and very possibly such a conference would find a better scheme than that we have outlined above. The only thing that really is essential is that the scheme should be universal and apply to all classes and that in no circumstances whatever should there be exemption by a money payment. Remember, how- ever, that even if the two parties agree to settle the problem once and for all, we could not get the full benefit of it for another five or six years. Therefore the need for maintaining other forms of national defence for the present would remain as strong as ever—and chief among these the enrolment of all the trained men in the country in the National Reserve.
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