We regret to note that Mr. Tennant, in answer to
the question raised by Sir Arthur Markham in the House of Commons on Tuesday in regard to "enlistment under age," did not take a stronger and more common.-sense line. What he ought to have told his importunate, not to say angry, questioner was that boys slightly under military age have been and will be taken if, in the opinion of the examining doctor, their physique is likely to prove equal to the strain. We have always held that, considering the need and considering what other nations are doing, boys should have a right to enlist if they are seventeen, or, in exceptional cases, under that age if the doctor certifies that they are as fully developed as the average boy of seventeen. Boys under eighteen we would place in Territorial battalions stationed in this country or in depot units, rather than in the battalions of the New Army. There is plenty of work for boys in the 'Home Army, and after six months of good food and physical training they will have developed into men. It is idle to pretend that a recruit is no good unless we can rush him to the front at once.
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