Though to us the balance of argument is on the
other side, the Qedernment have a case for saying that they are not going to intro- duce a new system of compulsion till they have properly exhausted the one already adopted. According to Mr. Long, they have already anearthed some three hundred thousand eligtble unmarried men in the munition factories and starred trades, and presumably this number will ultimately reach the half .million. Then will come the work of applying compulsion to the% men—a tiresome and diffioult, though of course by no means impossible, job. We do not ourselves think that the Government's position will in reality lie made easier by not accepting at once, at any rate in the abstract, the principle of universal compulsion for men of military age ; 5ut if they want to wait and see how things stand when they have -.7ounded up the whole of the unmarried men, then this latitude aright to be accorded to them.
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