COMPULSORY TRAINING. • A N advocate of compulsory training (we think
it was Lord'Newtou) once described our present system of providing for the military defence of these islands as one under' which nineteen men joined in a conspiracy to cajole the twentieth to do, a duty which not only ought to fall' Upon each one of them, but which if 'performed by them individually would' be immensely to their mOral and physical advantage. The absurdities, injustices, and inconveniences caused by this system of conspiring to cajole, or even sometimes to compel, as contrasted with a fair and democratic system of making all share in the performance of a duty which gives security, and therefore is of benefit, to all, were never better illustrated than in the debate on the Army Estimates which took place on Monday and Tuesday nights. Almost everybody who spoke was annoyed by some one or other of the develop- ments of the present system. Some were indignant because Mr. Haldane, in order to avoid the very serious consequences which must have occurred had. the units of the Territorial Force remained unfilled, had recourse, to cajoleries through the popular. Press on one side, and to a system of partial compulsion at the hands of employers on the other. Mr. Henderson, the leader of the Labour Party, combined these criticisms. He was equally indignant at the use made of the Daily Mail, and at what he des,cribed .as "an unwarrantable and unscrupulous abuse of the 'rights of the ernploying elasgs so far as the employees were concerned." Sir George Scott Robertson, again, was particularlytinnoyed "at the method's of enlistment which had lately come into vogue, especially through the medium of a play, An, Englishman's Home." A friend who had seen this play said that the occupants of the stalls were firmly convinced that the occupants of the pit and gallery should at once join the Territorial Force, a by no. means unfair statement of the position of those ' who do not volunteer themselves, who detest the notion of compulsory service, and who yet are convinced that if the Territorial regiments are not filled the country will be in grave peril. Hardly any one ventured to defend in , principle the present system , of filling the Territorial • Army, though Mr Haldane, with his Usual' ability and dexterity, made the best apology possible for the 'methods that had been adopted. His argument really came .to this,—even if the methods used had been objectionable per se, they would not have to be 'employed again, as the Territorial units were now full. • The methods to which we have just alluded will not, we' feel sure, be regarded with satisfaction by any' Serious- minded man. In: the background, however, there are ' considerations even snore disagreeable. Not 'oily 'has it proved necessary to fill the ranks of the Territorial Force by doubtful, and in a sense unfair, 'methods, or at any rate by methods which result in shirking by a large part of the population. The Force is also proving very costly. In addition, the system of train- ing, which we fully admit is the only system possible ' under voluntary conditions, does not give us what we require to secure the home defence of these islands. Mr. Haldane's Territorial system supplies an admirable skeleton organisation for home defence, but unfortunately the personnel is to get its real training after war is declared and when the danger has arisen. . It is the merit of that • system of universal training which we desire, and which is being pressed upon the attention of the country by the National Service League, that the training will take place before the emergency has , arisen, and not when it is probably too late. The policy of the National Service League gets rid of almost all the prime objections that were raised in Parliament on Monday to the existing system. To begin, with, it is thoroughly democratic, and prevents that shirking by the men in the stalls of which Sir George Scott Robertson complained, and rightly complained. It would put an end to the conspiracy which may be said to have been formed to induce a special section of.. the labouring population, plus a special section of the middle class, to carry out the heavy obligation which, in justice, should fall upon all. The Trade-Union and Labour leaders like Mr. Henderson talk very big about the wickedness of suggesting that the working man should be compelled to train himself to defend, if necessary, his home, his libertiee, and his country, just as' if compulsion were to fall solely upon the working man. They seem to forget that corn- ' pulsion such as is advocated by the National Service League would fall upon all classes, and that those who would be most hardly hit, because they now do least, would be certain large and well-defined sections pf the upper and middle classes,—the men in the stalls and dress and upper circles, and many men who do not . go to: the theatre at all.
Under the present system the hoines which contribute least to home defence are distinctly those of the well-to-do. Except for those who become officers, the Territorial; system touches only very slightly the homes with incomes., of, say, £500 a year. and above. It would 'be one immense advantage of a compulsery system that the youth of the comfortable classes would net only 'be. trained for the defence of their country, but would be, trained side by side with the artisan and. the labourer, as, they are in Norway and Switzerland. As to, the good results achieved, by bringing all classes together, during , two or three.months' recruit training, we should like to call the attention of Liberal Members of Parliament to a . very striking article by a young Swiss soldier which appeared in the February number of the .journal of..the National Service League, The Nation in Arms (national Service League, 72 Victoria Street, S.W., 3d.) The writer, who evidently comes from a rich man's house, shows how excellent are the physical and moral effects of military discipline under conditions which are not in operation long enough to produce the deadening results of militarism, but yet long enough to make men understand the meaning of obedience and co-operation. And here we may say that when we speak of the need of discipline which exists in our population, wo consider that the need exists for the well-to-do quite as much as, if indeed not more than, for the poorer classes of the community. Those who will benefit most by four months' military discipline will be the young men of means and the street-boys and larrilcins. The euperior artisans and the clerks get a great deal of wholesome discipline in the workshop and the office. The undisciplined are to be found among "our young barbarians" of the residential quarters on the one hand, and of the slums on the other.
It is worth mentioning here that the young Swiss recruit, who evidently knows England as well as Switzerland, expresses a very emphatic opinion that we shall never adopt the Swiss system. We are net, he asserts, a sufficiently democratic people to endure it We believe that in the end be will be proved wrong. In view, however, of the kind of argu- ments that are used against universal training among middle-class Liberals, we can hardly wonder at his expressing this opinion. In spite of Mr. Henderson and the conventional talk of other Labour leaders about what they call "conscription," the real resistance to the proposals of the National Service League comes, we believe, from the middle class, and not from the workmen. The objection of the working man is first assumed, and then used to conceal and support a very different series of objections to compulsory service. Here, indeed, is another example of a fact which we have noted .before in these columns,—namely, that on many questions the Labour leaders represent, not the class for which they profess to speak, but thet special section of the middle class into which they have won their way by their intellectual capacity and force of character. At home and in his personal characteristics the Labour. leader is very often much more like, and much more in sympathy with, the small professional man, the tradesman, the shopkeeper, and the Nonconformist minister than the working man, and shares their likes and dislikes and prejudices in regard to most matters political and social.
, Before we leave the debate on. the Army Estimates we. should like to say a word on Mr. Harold Cox's restatement of the old proposition that if we have a strong enough Navy we can have no need for a military force in these islands, and that therefore our true plan is to spend every penny we can spare upon the Navy. If it were possible to make absolute •statements about human affairs, Mr. Cox's logic would no doubt be irrefutable. Unfortunately, as Burke pointed out long ago, nothing absolute can be affirmed upon any moral or political question, and therefore we have to be content to take lower grounds, and to deal with the problems of human society on considerations other than those of pure logic. The objections to the acceptance of Mr. Cox's proposition are many. In the first place, he assumes that there is no possibility of conditions arising under which, although we hold a vast preponderance of sea power, our aliens may for six or seven days lie open to attack. We should put it that the command of the sea will give us ninety per cent. of protection from invasion, but that there remains over a ten-per-cent. risk, and that, consider- ing the appalling nature of a catastrophe, it is well worth while to provide against this ten-per-cent. risk by the provision of an armed force in these islands. To state the matter in another way, it is worth while to insure ourselves in two companies in case one might fail,—in the army insurance office as well as the naval office. At any rate, this is the view which we feel sure that the British public not only has always held, but always will hold. We venture to say that if Mr, Cox's suggestion of keeping no soldiers in these islands were to be submitted to the nation, it would not gain the assent of one voter in a hundred thousand.
Another objection to Mr. Cox's view is to be found in the fact that the stripping of these islands bare of all military protection must act as a tremendous incentive to foreign Powers to endeavour to take from us the command of the sea. Mr. Cox, like the good economist he is, desires, we are sure, to keep the command of the sea on the cheapest possible terms. To do this we must give ai little incentive to other Powers as possible to compete With us. But considering the predatory instincts of mankind, just imagine the temptation to outbuild us which would be offered by the fact that if the command of the sea could be taken from us for a week or so these islands and their riches would lie absolutely open to the plunderer. The incentive thus provided might. easily cost us another twenty or thirtz millions a year on naval preparation. On the other hand, the fact" that we had a million well-trained home defenders would act in the opposite direction, and incline the Powers not to waste their money in competing with us for the command of the sea. It would tend to make them say : "Even if we could manage to get the command of the sea for a week or so, we could do nothing to bring Britain to her knees. Her adoption of universal training has made it useless to think of invasion by anything short of a million and a half of men, and it is impossible to find transport for such a number." Mr. Cox must remember the saying of the Irish priest which we have often quoted in these columns. When a landlord was shot by his parishioners, lie asked indignantly from the pulpit.: " What right had he to tempt the poor people of this district to murder him by going about unarmed P" We do not want the Powers of Europe to be tempted after this fashion.
Mr. Cox should consider the evil moral which must be produced if we were to act on the principle that we can give ourselves absolute security by spending sufficient money on sea power. Surely be does not want to see the people of this country "drowned in security,"— to employ the expressive phrase of one of the Elizabethan poets. To be thus drowned is good neither for men nor for nations. It is not good for men to think that in no possible circumstances can they ever be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice of, defending themselves and their country. If men are once taught that, come what may, they can eat, drink, and be merry and go about the world in swinish equanimity, secure that their sty will never be disturbed, they will become the most hateful and demoralised of human beings. To impress upon the people of this country the notion of such an . absolute security would be to turn Britain into a Capua, and to unfit our race and nation for their true mission in the world.
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