TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. HALDANE'S PROPOSALS. THOUGH we are unable to agree in several important details with Mr. Haldane's scheme for the reorganisa- tion of the Army, we fully admit the validity of the leading principles on which it is founded. Its essential character- istic is that it is not a new scheme of Army reform, and that it makes no attempt to give us a new type of Army. The mother-thought that governs Mr. Haldane is so to develop the existing Army that we shall get value for every unit, and that our soldiers shall be organised solely for the purpose for which soldiers exist,—that is, war. Organisation for war, that is the object upon which Mr. Haldane keeps his eyes steadily fixed. Whatever does not make for war efficiency he regards and treats as something upon which public money ought not to be expended. Mr. Haldane shows us that at present we possess a very large number of military " scraps " which, though good and serviceable in themselves, are rendered unserviceable because they have no definite and appropriate place in the Army, looked upon as a, war machine. It is his object to bring all these scraps into proper and efficient relation with the rest of the Army. He believes—and we hold that he is right in believing—that if these scraps, or let us call them loose pieces of chain, can be linked up, we may possess, not at a greater but at a less cost than at present, an Army capable of giving us a force for oversew service during war of 154,000 men to begin with, and of another force of 56,000 men to make good the wastage in the first six months of war. His plan for linking up and using the odds and ends of chain will give us, that is, a force for oversea war of 200,000 men without recourse to the improvisation of new troops. This is a far larger force than we have hitherto—we will not say possessed, but been able to make use of, because we have always had a large number of loose links lying about the country which there was no means of connecting up with the main cable. At the same time, however, Mr. Haldane proposes to reduce the Regular Forces of the Crown by something approaching 20,000 men. In other words, he declares that while he reduces the national forces, and so decreases their cost, he is going to increase by fifty per cent. the number of men available for oversea war. At first sight this seems an absurdity, and as if he had confused subtraction with addition. The explanation, however, is in reality simple enough. What enables Mr. Haldane to perform this apparent miracle is the fact that he is going to augment the forces of the Crown available for oversea service by troops of various arms raised upon what we may call a Militia or non-professional basis,—that is, upon a basis under which a man remains for the greatest part of his time a civilian, but undertakes an obligation to serve oversea in case of war.
Let us see in detail how Mr. Haldane proposes to apply this to his force of four cavalry brigades and six divisions (154,000 men in all) which will be ready on mobilisation to leave these shores for abroad. To begin with, he means to supplement the Regular or professional cavalry by a force of 3,240 men, who will be provided by the Yeomanry. Next, he means to augment the artillery by a force of 10,337 men, who will be raised out of the present Militia garrison artillery, and who will, in the first place, form the ammunition columns which the new quick-firing guns need on so large a scale. (Parenthetically, we may observe that these bodies, though they have the somewhat misleading name of ammunition columns, are an essential part of modern artillery. Though the work is not so technical as that of the men who serve the guns, it is quite as honourable, quite as arduous, and quite as essential. The ammunition column, that is, is no mere part of a- stores or transport organisation, but an essential part of the fighting line where guns are concerned.) Again, Mr. Haldane proposes to obtain from the Militia engineer companies a body of 2,425 men to form part of the overseas force. Next, he intends to supply the Army Service Corps with 10,775 men, the Royal Army Medical Corps with 3,098 men, the Army Veterinary Corps with 541 men, and the Army Ordnance Corps with 441 men, who are to be raised by a special engagement on a non- professional and Militia basis. They will not be members of existing Militia corps, but will be raised ad hoc for the purposes just indicated. It will be seen that Mr. Haldane thus intends to supplement the Regular Force which has to be kept ready in these islands for service oversea on mobilisation by nearly 31,000 men, about half of whom will be provided by a readjustment of a portion of the present Militia Force, while the other half will be men specially engaged on a Militia basis. These latter will, in fact, be like the civilian horses which are now earmarked for war. Here, then, we have the explanation of the fact that though Mr. Haldane cuts off some 20,000 Regulars, he is able to increase the overseas force by so large an amount.
Mr. Haldane applies the same principle of using what we may term Militia-basis links in order to complete the body of 56,000 men which is to be mobilised when the main body of four cavalry brigades and six divisions goes oversea in order to repair the wastage which it is calculated would take place in the first six months of war. The men thus set aside to supply wastage consist, under Mr. Haldane's scheme, of what we may call surplus men from the Regular Reserve and men from the Yeomanry and Militia, with the addition of a certain number of non- professional men specially engaged on a Militia basis. In this wastage-repair force there are 4,581 cavalry, made up of Yeomanry and surplus Regular Reserve. There are 10,610 artillerymen, the greater part 'of whom will be found by the Militia. The same applies to a body of 1,673 engineers, while 3,000 odd Army Service Corps men and 1,300 Royal Army Medical Corps men are provided as before by men specially engaged on a Militia basis. This leaves a force of 34,740 infantry. Of this force about 9,000 will be found by the Militia, while 25,000 will be drawn from the surplus Regular Reserve of infantry. Here, again, it will be seen that Mr. Haldane gets his numbers by having recourse to Militia, Yeomanry, and specially enlisted men. The principle upon which he relies is that there are many military functions, for the dis- charge of which we have hitherto provided at a very heavy ' cost by means of Regulars, which can be adequately per- formed by men raised on a Militia basis.
It may perhaps be said that if Mr. Haldane adopts this principle to so great an extent, why does he not carry it further, and thereby effect still greater savings ? The answer is a simple one. Owing to the possession of our Indian and Colonial Empire, we are obliged to keep some 120,000 men always abroad. But in order to keep this Imperial garrison in a state of efficiency and up to its full strength, it is necessary to maintain in these islands a very large number of men, first in training, next in a condition which we may call resting from oversea work, and lastly in the Reserve. But as these men, organised in military units, are obliged to be kept in the United Kingdom owing to the dominant needs of India and the rest of the Empire, it is clearly the duty of the War Office so to organise them that they shall be available on an emergency. The necessity of their existence controls, as it were, the military situation. Not to use them to the fullest extent would be waste, because, as we have seen, they must exist. But they can only be used to the fullest extent if we supply them, to revert to our metaphor, with what we may call links forged from Militia metal. In other words, Mr. Haldane does not adopt for his overseas force a standard of 154,000 men and 56,000 men to repair wastage because he calculates that that is the size of force we should be likely to want. No man can say in the abstract how many men we may want for an unknown war. What he does say is that the need of providing for India and the rest of the Empire gives us the power of producing 200,000 men in a national emergency to serve overseas, and that, therefore, apart from other considerations, it would be the height of folly not to prepare those men for war and make the scattered links available. But the cheapest way of doing this is to make links on a Militia basis. To change our metaphor, Mr. Haldane finds that he has a pump which might if properly handled yield a certain flow. But the pump will not draw and do its work properly unless an amount of liquid is first poured into it. He finds also that the cheapest liquid which he can pour in to start his Army pump is to be obtained on a Militia basis,—that is, on the basis of men giving the greater part of their time to civilian work, but being also under an obligation to serve in time of war. So much for the general outline of Mr. Haldane's scheme. It is at once apparent, however, that it cannot work unless the Militia is in future recruited with an obligation for oversea service in time of war. For our- selves, we see no objection to recruiting it on this basis. Practically the power of embodiment which now exists makes the Militia available for oversea service. It is obvious that as soon as the Militia is embodied a Militia regiment will infinitely prefer to go to the front rather than kick their heels in some dull English garrison town. We have no doubt, therefore, that if it is made clear, as it will be, to the men that they will never be sent oversea except in time of war, and that their obligation will in reality be no more arduous than it is at present, there will be no difficulty on this head. It will probably, however, be found inadvisable to make the obligation so universal in the case of the Yeomanry. A smaller number of men will be required from the Yeomanry, and we do not doubt that an. obligation upon a regiment to produce a certain percentage of men for oversew service in case of war will do instead of an individual obligation. As regards the men to be specially enlisted on what we have called a Militia basis for such forces as the Army Service Corps and the Army Medical Corps, we see no difficulty. The War Office in raising what will in effect be a new force will be able to make appropriate terms of service.
It will be seen that Mr. Haldane gives the Volun- teers no special place in the proposed mobilisation. This, we feel sure, is not due to any want of appre- ciation on his part of the value of the Volunteers, but rather to the fact that their terms of service could not be altered so as to make them available • as a whole for oversee service. They are primarily regarded by Mr. Haldane as a force to be employed in garrison- ing the strong places on the coast, and in providing the material for the home defence army to be used in repelling raids. These duties are no doubt important enough and honourable enough per se to content the Volunteers, but we hold that in addition the Volunteers should be asked—and we are sure they will readily respond—to supply drafts for the wastage-repair force of 56,000 men which will be got ready on mobilisation. In our opinion, every Volunteer regiment should be asked to supply (or, if that would give too many men, groups of Volunteer regiments should be asked to supply) a service company for the wastage-repair force. In the first place, we believe that the Volunteers would provide men of the very highest quality ; and next, we hold that the obliga- tion to find such companies would have the most excellent effect upon the Volunteers. The fact that such an obligation was placed upon them would give a sense of reality to their work, and would be a stimulus to their training. For ourselves, indeed, we should like the custom or rule to be that the Militia should supply units for oversea service and the Volunteers drafts. We realise that such a rule seems to the War Office likely to hamper their arrangements ; but in spite of that, we believe that it would prove a salutary one. If the Militia battalions are once allowed to be looked upon as places from which drafts can be supplied, we fear that they are certain to be neglected by the War Office. As long; that is, as the War Office are allowed to skim the cream, they will be comparatively indifferent to the total contents of the bowl. If, however, the military authorities know that if they use the Militia they will, as a rule, be obliged to use it as it stands, they will be forced to see to it that the bowl is not only kept well filled, but filled with good stuff both as regards officers and men.
They will not be able to run the risk of having bad Militia regiments if they are obliged to use them as units.
The objections to drafting from the Militia do not, how- ever, apply to the Volunteers. They are units which, ex hypothesi, must be kept at home, and therefore there is no objection to, but indeed every reason for, their supplying drafts.
The problems involved in Mr. Haldane's system of reorganisation are so many and so complicated that we have left ourselves very little space to speak of his most important suggestion for the territorialisation of the Auxiliary Forces. Roughly speaking, however, his plan is as follows. The Regular Forces will remain as they are. Next to them will come the Militia, the members of which may be described as a species of half-timers,—i.e., of men who for the greater part of their time of service are civilians, but who also have the widest military obligations during war. In addition to these, there will be the men specially enlisted on a Militia basis for the Army Service Corps, the Army Veterinary Corps, the Army Medical Corps, and the Army Ordnance Corps. The rest of the Auxiliaries—that is, the Yeomanry and the Volunteers—Mr. Haldane pro- poses to place under County Associations, which are to be created for the purpose of encouraging and stimulating the citizen soldier. It will be the duty of these County Associations to do all in their power to increase the numbers and efficiency of the Yeomanry and the Volunteers; and, further, to foster rifle clubs, Cadet corps, and other semi-military bodies which can be affiliated to the local forces. On them, too, we presume, will be ultimately placed the duty of carrying out schemes for the improvisa- tion of large numbers of troops supposing we are ever faced with a great national emergency. To the prepara- tion of such schemes we attach the very greatest import- ance. It is an admirable thing to organise and to make preparation for the garrisoning of our strong places by Volunteers, and to render the Volunteers responsible for home defence. We must never forget, however, that it may some day be necessary for our Government to do what Abraham Lincoln did in America,—that is, to call upon the nation for a million additional soldiers. But if so great and terrible an emergency should arise we ought to have ready to our hand the skeleton organisation for raising such a force. We must never again have to think out a system of improvisation at a moment's notice as we did after Colenso. The system on which we propose to raise and train men—that is, on which •we mean to organise the levee en masse—must be carefully thought out in peacetime.
We shall have other opportunities of discussing the details of Mr. Haldane's scheme. Before, however, we leave the subject to-day we must add that, though we are strongly in favour of his general principles, we must express our regret and make our protest in regard to his proposals for abolishing two battalions of Guards. It is true, no doubt, that the Guards cannot supply drafts for India, and that the two battalions may seem in a certain sense redundant. In spite of this, we are con- vinced that the arguments which we used last week cannot be answered. We must say once again that, in our belief, the proper way to deal with the Guards would be to add two battalions to the Irish regiment, and thus let the Guards Brigade consist of twelve battalions. At the same time, we would reduce the term of colour service to two years. If this were done, and if Mr. Haldane is able to improve the Militia Force, as we are quite sure he could improve it, by adopting a system of six months' training on the model of the Spectator Experimental Company, it might possibly be safe to get rid of the Regular battalions which lie proposes to abolish. We desire, however, to see the Regulars remain un- diminished until the improved Militia has been called into existence. We fully admit the desirability of reducing expenditure ; but desirable as that is, we hold that the total number of our armed forces should not be reduced at present, even when their efficiency is increased, as Mr. Haldane proposes to increase it, by better organisation. When the new and improved Militia has come into exist- ence then will be the time to reduce the Regulars.
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