SHORTAGE IN THE ARMY
By CAPT. J. R. J. MACNAMARA, M.P.
FOR some time the British public has been congratulating itself on the progress of the country's rearmament programme. The student of history will realise which arm of the Service has eventually to bear the brunt of any war. It is true that our Navy and our Air Force are at this moment in a better position to take on an enemy than they have been since the end of the Great War. The same cannot be said, however, of our Army, and by our Army I mean the Regular, Territorial and Reserve Military Forces of Great Britain, which are included in this loose title. The Regular Army is nearly 25,000 under strength, the Territorial Army is 46,000 or more under strength, and the Reserve is deplorably depleted. In this short article I will not deal with the Territorial Army nor with the Reserve, nor yet with the question of Equipment. I will confine myself to discussing what I consider to be a few of the many reasons why young men today do not volunteer readily to join His Majesty's Regular Army.
In the first place, let me say that it is not a lack of spirit amongst modern young men which is the cause. The Air Force is certainly a more dangerous arm than the Army, but it never lacks recruits. More men than it can possibly cope with offer themselves at the recruiting offices. Likewise the Navy is always up to strength, and not only the Navy but its Military Branch—the Royal Marines—which is administered by the Admiralty and not by the War Office. It is definitely the Army itself which the young man will not join. There must be some reason for it. I venture to suggest that there is something wrong with the Army internally.
Before, however, coming to this question I wish to mention the treatment of the soldier first of all by the general public, and secondly by the Government. Traditionally, the general public of our country has not treated the soldier with the same respect as it has the sailor, and as, nowadays, it also treats the airman. The reasons for this are deeprooted in history, but there is no reason why these roots should not be pulled out of our soil and finally burnt. I have known dance halls in Scotland and. in England, not to mention such countries as India, where the private soldier if in inifoim is not admitted. In the same way there are public houses throughout the country which do not serve soldiers in uniform. Whether it be the proprietor of the public house, or the Army Authorities themselves, which refuse the soldier admission, the result is exactly the same—it makes the soldier realise that there is somewhere .where the civilian is allowed where he is not allowed, and it gives him an inferiority complex. For some reason or other, this kind of treatment does not seem to apply in the same way to the men of the Royal Air Force, and the result is that civilians will more readily join the latter. Nor does the Government assist in putting right this psychological hindrance. So many times in recent years leading statesmen, including the Prime Minister, could have given a lead to recruiting, could have given a pat on the back to the soldier, in speeches which would have been published on the leading pages of journals throughout the land, but these statements have not been so readily forth- coming as many of us would have hoped. The Army, and therefore the soldier, has been left in the background ; some: times, in fact, deliberately pushed into the background, and few young men seek to live in the background of theli on free will.
Now, however, I come to the much more _ important question of what is wrong with the Army internally.. The fact that the soldier is treated in a class apart is not only the fault of the general public. The Army itself, even in this year of 1937, in spite of the great strides which have been made in education and consequent betterment of the people, seeks to convince the soldier that, whatever he may consider himself, he is, in fact, really an inferior being.
These may sound harsh words, but it is difficult not to believe that they are true. There have been so many oppor- tunities for those in Authority better the lot of the individual Private, that, when -they are not seized, one cannot but consider- that the -neglect is intentional. Take, for instance, the question of Military Police. As we all know,-the soldier has a special Police Force-to watch him—other soldiers in khaki uniforms with red, tops to their hats.- These men are a constant' cause of irritation to the soldier when off duty and out of barracks, and-, therefore, supposedly his own master. It is well known that their tact is not always what it might be ; that they come up to a soldier when he is out for a walk with his girl, and demand to see his Pass, and, in fact, put the man in an awkward position in front of his civilian friends. Naturally enough the girl next time will prefer to walk out with a young man who is not interfered with by third parties. If the soldier is equal to other citizens, surely the Civilian Police Force is good enough to deal with him. A bad soldier can always avoid the Military Policeman. He is only a nuisance to the good soldier.
The best recruiting agent, in fact the only recruiting agent who really counts, is the serving man himself. Let us see, then, what a young man, keen to be a soldier, will go home and tell his friends after he has himself been in the Army for a few weeks. When a man joins he is in his most pliable state. He is keen to learn his new job, he is keen to start at once. Probably he discussed joining with several of his friends, who may all have been on the verge of joining up, but who were only too glad for him to make the plunge first and then come home and give them his report. The young man joins and should, of course, at once, be put to soldiering. Instead, how- ever, in most units, owing to the tight regimental system, which means that a Squad takes a long time forming, until his Squad is formed he is set to work on the duties of a domestic servant. For hours a day, for many weeks, he will be scrubbing floors, heaving coal, or, worse, filling in his time with work which he knows is invented for him, often scratching out bits of grass from a gravel path with a broken dinner knife. It does not take long to break his military heart. This lad, who was keen, anxious to learn, in a position probably to bring in others, is, in a few weeks, owing to the retention of an out-of-date system, the best anti-recruiting agent that a prospective foreign adversary could desire in our Kingdom. This could all be put right, first of all by loosening this regimental system, and secondly by recruiting a Labour Corps of veterans to take on all the necessary domestic duties of barracks.
Again, before he joins, the recruiting posters would lead a young man to believe that on joining he will receive full board and lodging, with all his clothes, and 14s. per week pocket money besides, with the prospects of an early rise.
It is not long beforc he is steadily disillusioned. It may be argued that Lets. a week is sufficient as a start, as a basic rate of pay. It is not, however, very much in these days and com- pares as a wage only with the lowest scale of domestic worker. It does not, however, even compare with that, when one con- siders the question of stoppages. These are of two kinds, legal and illegal. The legal stoppages are deductions from pay for such benefits as sports, libraries, and the like. They are, in my opinion, too heavy and should, I consider, be abolished altogether. Far more serious, however, are the illegal stop- pages, and it is very doubtful whether, in spite of the orders given to this end they have yet been satisfactorily curbed. They arise again very much as a result of the regimental system. Regiments demand that their men buy all sorts of bits of uniform and finery which are not allowed for in the original issue. Some regiments go so far even as to change practically the whole outfit that is issued for another of private design and of better material. Men are forced to buy non-uniform hats, breeches of a more swagger cut, nickel instead of steel spurs, yellow or green or blue lanyards, and so on. This happens not only once in his service, but usually anyway twice : sometimes more often, for when the man goes abroad, particularly to India, the whole process is repeated all over again. Having just about got himself out of debt after 18 months or so service in England, he lands in India to find that he must be plunged into debt again for a long period whilst he is paying off a huge bill for uniform and equipment which either should be issued to him free, or which he should not have been made to have at all. In India not only does the man have to pay out of his own pocket for extra clothes, but he even has to pay out of his own pocket towards his food, which would not be sufficient to keep him healthy unless he did so.
There are many other stoppages besides. The whole question needs to be reviewed and tackled by someone prepared to be ruthless and to stand up against all the criti- cisms of tampering with tradition, &c., but such a man, if he carries through the right reforms, will be serving his country more by making the Army of today an efficient Army, ready to meet modern requirements, than by bolstering up a Pageant of bygone times.
Soldiers do not mind foreign service, but they do expect modernisation of the systems under which they must serve. Foreign requirements mean that the average soldier must spend probably about five years out of his seven with the Colours in some Colony or Dependency, usually India. He spends these years during the time of his life when he should be building his foundation in a profession which is to be his for the rest of it. By being a soldier, however, he does not as a rule learn anything that is going to help him later on in civil life. In order to put this right the Vocational Training Centres have started, and the soldiers who have had the opportunity of passing through them have certainly benefited much thereby. The chances of being selected to attend a course at one of these centres are, however, small.
The future Government Policy in this connexion is still very obscure, but definitely it must make some provisiod for soldiers to be taught a trade before they leave the Colours so that they may be assured of a reasonable chance in the future : for, if they do not do so, no thinking young man will ruin his prospects in life by joining the Army for seven years for the possible advantage only of seeing the world. In this matter Government Departments could co-operate much more in this respect than they at present do. In tl•e first place they do not co-operate sufficiently actively or whole-heartedly in the recruitment of the soldier. It seems to me that the Ministry of Labour is afraid to put before those with whom it comes into contact the conditions of service in the Army, or in any way to encourage unemployed young men to join. Even when a man leaves the Army, it is true that some Government Departments reserve certain vacancies for the ex-soldier, but there are not enough of these to go round. Why not ? If every prospective recruit knew that at the end of seven years' service with the Colours, provided his character was good, he would be assured of a position with a Government Department, or a course in a Vocational Centre, there would in all probability be no dearth of recruits for the Army.
Finally, I must say a word about yet one more Government Department, and that is the Ministry of Pensions. A more generous treatment of border-line pension cases by the Ministry of Pensions, instead of what is apparently a very hard-hearted handling of them at the moment, would mean good recruiting agents in pensioners in towns and villages throughout the length and breadth of the land. A pension case unreasonably turned down is a sure deterrent to recruiting.
I have mentioned the word Modernisation. I would like to mention it in yet one more respect, and that is in connexion with discipline. Here, indeed, is a case for Modernisation. The young man of today has a modern outlook. He is brought up in a modern school with modern lines of thought. At the age of 18, he does not wish to be thrown back into the age of Waterloo or the campaigns of Marlborough. Some of the outward results which Army discipline demands become, I am sorry to say, merely a laughing stock amongst the general public. No young Englishman likes to be laughed at, and therefore he does not join any organisation which lays him open to it. There is no need to slacken discipline in any single respect. It is Modernisation, not relaxation, which is required. In the same way as training 1- as to be modernised to compete with modern weapons, so also should the treatment of the men move with the times.
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