TOPICS OF THE DAY.
NATIONAL TRAINING, PHYSICAL AND MILI- TARY : 'WHY NOT A ROYAL COMMISSION ? THE Times of Saturday last contains two communica- tions of great interest in regard to the subject of physical and military training for the nation as a whole.
The first is a letter signed by the Duke of Wellington setting forth the aims and objects of a newly established Association called " The National Service League," which has been founded "for the purpose of urging that naval and military training for national defence shall be made compulsory-by law for all ; while, with a view to making it as short as is compatible with efficiency, the League advocates obligatory drill in all schools, primary and secondary, public and private." The qualifying subscription of the League is placed at a shilling a year in order to give it a widely popular character, but larger subscriptions are invited, and may be sent to the honorary treasurer, Mr. Heary Birchenough, West Bank, Macclesfield ; to Mr. Clinton Dawkins, C.B., 38 Queen Anne's Gate, S.W. ; and to Lord Newton, 6 Belgrave Square, S.W. The secretary of the League, from whom all particulars are to be obtained, is Mr. J. F. Shee, Da,cre House, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. We wish the League a successful hearing, for though we cannot agree wholly with their schemes, we are in hearty accord with the general idea, that inspires them, as we stated in our article on this subject drawing attention to Mr. Samuel Smith's proposals contained in his letter to the Times,—an article which, we may mention, has been republished by Mr. Smith along with his own letter (" National Defence ; " London : Charles F. Thynne, 6 Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn, W.C., 2d.) The other communication to last Saturday's Times to which we desire to draw the attention of our readers is the second of a series entitled " National Training and National Defence." It sets forth with great ability the outline of a scheme for universal military training. The writer, who is, he tells us, a great employer of labour, and who evidently has had a very wide experience, desires, first, that all boys should receive the elements of drill in the national schools till they reach the age of fourteen, and next that between fourteen and eighteen or nineteen they should obtain at home, and alongside of and in addition to their other work, industrial or educational, a thorough physical and military training. They would not, that is, be conscripted or sent into barracks or turned into soldiers, but would merely be trained physically just as they are now trained mentally. In fact, their education would be continued in a physical and military continuation school. The specific suggestion of the writer is " that military or naval training should be made compulsory by law for every able-bodied youth between the ages of fourteen and eighteen or nineteen, without exemptions of any kind, as a branch. of, or as a continuation of, ordinary education. In working out the details it would be advisable to follow closely the lines of existing or proposed educational machinery. Military training would rank as an additional branch beside elementary, secondary, and technical education, being most nearly allied by its compulsory character with elementary education." The duty of carrying out the law should, he holds, be thrown upon the local authority, the County or Borough Council acting through a special Committee appointed ad hoc, whose duty it would he to furnish out of funds provided from Imperial sources all the necessary expenses for instructors, drill-grounds, drill-halls, and, possibly, arms, accoutrements, and, where necessary, ranges. The system would rest upon a purely local basis like any other branch of education, and all lads until they attained the age of eighteen or nineteen and reached a fixed standard of efficiency would have to submit to a prescribed course of training in the locality where they for the time being residei. " This would cause no serious dis- turbance to industry, and could probably be carried on, in the case of the vast mass of the population, during the abundant leisure which they have at their disposal; but, if difficulties arose, in order to meet them there might be further shortening of the legal hours during which 'young persons' may be employed."
Here, again, though we find ourselves a good deal nearer to him than to the Stational Service League, we are not prepared to endorse unreservedly all the proposals made by the writer in the Times. Still, we see in both these schemes and in the proposals of Mr. Samuel Smith at great deal that is eminently sound, and that should, in our opinion, receive the most earnest thought and consideration from the best brains in the nation. We believe that from a variety of points of view and for many and divers reasons the nation is beginning to realise that its lads and young men are in grave need of physical training of a military kind. They see that by leaving off the training of the boys of the bulk of the population at fourteen, and by giving our lads a mental education only and no physical education worth speaking of, the nation is suffering a very great loss. They see also that when a call to arms comes, as it has come during the Boer War, we are greatly handicapped by the fact that the majority of the population is utterly ignorant of the use of arms. The spirit is willing enough, for the courage of our people is as high as ever, but the flesh is grievously weak, for it has never had any physical or military training.—Could anything have been more pathetic than the fact that half the young men who so nobly answered their country's call in 1900 had never fired a rifle in their lives, and were as ignorant of its use as so many old maids in a seaside watering-place ?—But the country, besides realising this, is also beginning to realise that it may get the British people trained to arms without having to sacrifice in any degree that personal freedom which it so wisely cherishes. That is, we are beginning to see that we need not be in the least frightened by the bug- bears of conscription and militarism, and that, without interfering with the liberty of the full-grown citizen any more than we interfere with it when we teach our boys to read, we may give our lads a physical training of a military kind which will be of immense benefit to them both' morally and from a bodily point of view, and also enable them to answer a call to arms in a way which will double the value of their patriotic devotion. In a word, the country has got its mind clear, and can perfectly well distinguish between physical education of a military kind and universal military service in barracks of the German or French pattern. Such universal military service it will not have, as we hold rightly, at any price. Possibly it may not agree to have physical education of a military kind, but at any rate proposals of that kind will not now be rejected under a misapprehension.
Public opinion having reached this point, and the air being filled as it is with schemes and proposals of all kinds for improving the physical condition of our lads and making them able to serve the Motherland with efficiency if they wish, it appears to us that the time has arrived when the whole subject should be considered by a Royal Commission,—and a Royal Commission of no perfunctory kind, but one which will command the respect and atten- tion of the whole nation. We suggest that the Chairman of the Royal Commission we desire should be the Prince of Wales. We make this suggestion not because we want a Royal figurehead, but because we believe that the Heir to the Throne would bring to the deliberations of the body in question knowledge and experience of the most valuable kind. It will be remembered that the Prince of Wales in the admirable speech delivered by him at the Guildhall on his return from his Imperial voyage dwelt with special force on the Cadet corps which he had seen and reviewed in the Colonies. It is clear from that passage that he has given the whole subject earnest con- sideration, and that he would be able to direct the atten- tion of a Royal Commission to the example of our Colonies, and make them realise that the Colonies have in a large measure actually done what we are still only discussing, and discussing very often not as regards the merits, but as regards the physical possibility of achievement. As col- leagues on the Royal Commission the Prince of Wales should have civilians rather than soldiers, for the matter to be considered is not a military question, or one on which military expert opinion should have any special weight. We do not want to make our lads into soldiers, but merely to improve their physique and morale, and to create a reser- voir of men who may in time of need quickly and voluntarily turn themselves into soldiers. One soldier and one sailor of eminence might be added to the Commission, and would no doubt prove useful, but the military element must not pre- dominate, or else the Commission might be deflected from its true purpose. The men to serve on the Commission should primarily be' men of open mind, but care should be taken that the Commission is strong on the educa- tional side. The Head-Masters should be represented, and also the elementary schools, either by masters or else by active members of School Boards. Naturally the great employers of labour would be given a prominent place on the Commission, as also would representatives of religious bodies whose work lies among the masses. It goes without saying that, among these must be the most weighty and influential of the Nonconformists. It is essential that the great leaders of Nonconformist opinion, should hear the evidence in full, and be put in a position to realise exactly what is proposed to be done and for what reasons. In addition, lay students of social conditions—chief among them we should instance Mr. Charles Booth—ought to be on the Commission. Again, working-men representatives like Mr. Burt, Mr. Burns, and Mr. Abraham (" Mabon must, of course, be placed on the Commission. But though the Commission should be made representative of all the chief elements in the nation, it must not be of unwieldy size, and cars must be taken to avoid the fault of placing on the Commission men whose true place would be to tender evi- dence, and to try to convert the Grand Jury of Inquest— for such a Commission really is—to their views.
The exact form of the reference for the Commission, if happily we and those who share our views should be able to induce the advisers of the Crown to appoint it, is one which we cannot, of course, attempt to set forth here. Clearly, however, it should be simple and comprehensive, and allow full investigation of all the schemes proposed and of all the facts ascertainable. What the nation would want to know from the Commission would be whether they thought it desirable in the highest interests of the nation to supplement the present gratuitous and compulsory literary education by gratuitous and compulsory physical education, and if so, what the nature of that physical education ought to be in order (1) to improve the physical condition and moral discipline of the youth of the nation; (2) to endow the youth of the nation with a knowledge of the use of arms to be used either in home defence or in the event of a call for volunteers for active service. We believe that a Royal Commission investigating the whole matter on these lines could not fail to make recommendations which would enable us to obtain what we firmly believe the nation desires—i.e., the good without the harm of military service—to improye the physical condition of the popula- tion and to increase our powers of defence, and at the same time to avoid the terrible evils of militarism that are so apt to spring up under any system of conscription.
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