The recent intensification of recruiting for all three fighting services
has drawn attention to the unsatisfactory conditions of the personrfel, particularly in regard to pay.. This book (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 9s.) submits to a very careful examina- tion the whole , situation, as affected by the increases in pay which were announced this March. Commander Grenfell comes.. to the, extremely disquieting conclusions that these increases have effected no substantial improvement, and that the present shortages in manpower and the admittedly poor quality of an appreciable proportion of the personnel are caused largely by underpayment. For this underpayment he puts the responsibility on the Anderson Committee of 1923, whose findings he demolishes in a devastatingly convincing analysis. The remedies that he suggests include very much more than increases of pay, and are arresting and attractive. He pro- poses a complete change in the State's. attitude to its fighting men, whom it has hitherto regarded -as having limitless obli- gations but not even the ordinary citizen's rights. The fighting man has been put officially on if par with the unskilled labourer, largely because of his impotence in the face of Treasury restrictions. Commander „Grenfell's book, which handles a mass of statistical detail with an admirable sense of proportion, is of more than service interest. If justice is done, it should produce much-needed-legislation.
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