Striking Force
The easiest way to increase the exceptional difficulties con-. fronting the Territorial Army during 1954—to some of which a sensible speech by its Director, Major-General Kimmins, called attention last week-end—is to reduce the skeleton staff of Regulars on which units rely for training, administration and the maintenance of vehicles and equipment. Under pressure of man-power shortage the War Office have just done this, by an edict which originally also prescribed a reduction of thirty per cent. in the small establisment of civilian clerks. The promptitude with which this part of the order was cancelled—it was a particularly silly idea, since paper-work during 1954 will be heavier than ever because of the numbers of national servicemen becoming due for dis- charge—may have been due to protests from units all over the country; and it set me wondering, insubordinately, whether the Territorial Army might not fare better if all its volunteer officers organised themselves into a Junta on the lines favoured by military circles in Latin America. Our methods would be strictly constitutional : no pronunciamentos, no coups d'etat, no precipitate irruptions into the War Office or the BBC. We should merely, when we considered that the interests of our units were being threatened by parsimony, folly or neglect, indicate our intention of exercising, en bloc, our right to resign our commissions. It would create an interesting situation.
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