Lord Roberts, who with Lord Kitchener and Captain Percy Scott
were the guests of the Fishmongers' Company on Tuesday evening, made an earnest appeal to employers of labour on behalf of the Reservists and discharged men. Within the last few weeks, he said, be had received from more than one place protests against the Reservists and dis- charged men being given all the loaves and fishes. "It struck me," remarked Lord Roberts, "that those who protested must have forgotten what these soldiers did for them. They must have lost sight of the fact that if a sufficient number of soldiers did not voluntarily come forward for service every year, the nation would have to think of what other arrange- ments could be made to keep our ranks full and to give us a, sufficient number of Reserves. It seems to me, therefore, a somewhat short-sighted policy to throw obstacles in the way of obtaining employment for men who have served their country as these men have done." Lord Roberts also ex- pressed the pleasure it gave him to see his "friend and com- rade " Lord Kitchener there that night, and to tell Captain Percy Scott, whom he had never met before, "how greatly we soldiers feel indebted to him and to the Royal Navy for their assistance to us in the war in South Africa."
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