Organising Service A letter from Sir Auckland Geddes (himself Minister
of National Service in the last War) in Thursday's Times contains a suggestive outline for mobilising the country's resources, human and material, without resort, at present at any rate, to compulsion. No case for compulsion has been made out, for there has been no failure of volUntary effort, except in regard to A.R.P., and there the real failure was precisely that which Sir Auckland desires to remedy, the absence of machin- ery in which the volunteer could be caught up and set at once to useful tasks. Sir Auckland suspends judgement on the creation of a Ministry of Defence, but urges the immediate creation of Ministries of Supply—a step that should mani- festly have been taken months ago—and of National Service, the purpose of the latter being primarily to work out plans by which the fullest and most effective use could be made of the man-poWer (and woman-power) of the country in an emergency. A National Register, which would call for no extensive or inquisitory questionnaires, would be a necessary and legitimate basis for the new Ministry's work.
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