LORD DERBY AND THE VOLUNTEERS.
WE do not desire to overwhelm Lord Derby with too 1` V many recruiting suggestions. We have, however, one more to add to those made by us last week—one which we sincerely believe will be of real service, and will tend to make the new effort to get men what we want it to be, a complete success. In view of this introduction, our readers will wonder why we drag in the Volunteers. At first sight it may indeed seem to many that we are confusing the issue by attempting to cover much too wide a field. Yet, in spite of appearances, wo can show that Lord Derby may obtain the greatest possible help for his work from the Volunteer movement if he handles it as we hope and believe he will. It should be noted incidentally that the first object set before themselves by the Volunteers and by the Central Association is " the obtaining of recruits for the Regular Army." In the list of Volunteer aims and objects that comes even before training for home defence, or, rather let us say, it is recognized by the Volunteers as the best piece of work that they can do for home defence. But though this is the first aim and object of the Volunteers, and though Lord Derby can therefore legitimately call them to his aid, this is not for the moment what we want him to do with the Volunteers. Strange as it may sound, we want him to include in his appeal for recruits for the Regular Army an appeal for Volunteers. We want him, that is, to take the very widest possible view of his powers and functions, and to array not merely half the nation but the whole nation. We want him to make the new effort one which will involve an appeal to the manhood of the whole country, and when it is finished will leave no male over seven- teen years of age unaccounted for from the military point of view unless he is incapacitated by illness, or at school, or prevented by weight of years from doing his part in national defence. If he is none of these things, he will be either in the Army, or engaged in making munitions or some other necessary work, or, finally, a Volunteer. Those who read Mr. Harris's letter in our issue of to-day describing what the Volunteers have done, and our review of the V.T.C. Handbook, may almost feel that no further apology is needed for bringing the Volun- teers into the new recruiting appeal. But let that pass. For the moment we freely confess that in the plan we are suggesting we are not thinking of helping the Volunteers or trying to increase their numbers by a side-wind. We are not thinking of anything but the essential problem of how to get the thirty thousand men per week which must be got, and got at once, if we are to finish the war on the voluntary system. That is the matter in hand, and on that we must for the moment concentrate.
If we are to raise the men on the voluntary system, it has become abundantly clear that we shall not now get them by mere rhetorical appeals. We have done all, or almost all, we can do in that way. We shall only get them through the pressure of public opinion—through what, to coin a Hibernianism, we may describe as voluntary compulsion. We shall only do it if, in effect, we make every self-respecting man who is enlistable enlist. Now one of the best ways, perhaps the best way, of bringing the absolute and not-to-be-escaped-from duty of enlist- ment home to men is to make them feel that every- body else is doing his duty, and that they must therefore do theirs. We want to set the men who do not do their duty to the country apart, and apart in a very visible way—to make the slackers stand out from the rest of the population in a position which can only be described as a shameful eminence. If the remain- ing men of military age are thus isolated, they can be appealed to in a manner which will be almost irresistible, or rather which, if it leaves a final remnant, will leave one so small and contemptible as to be unworthy of attention. Now the most efficient way of doing that is to get prac- tically all the available men who are over military age to enrol themselves in the various Volunteer Corps in the country. lf, then, Lord Derby were to couple with his Regular recruiting movement a national appeal for recruits for the Volunteers, we ought to get, and believe we could get, the enrolment of some two million men. By this means we should not merely have given an example, but exercised a pressure upon the men of military age which would be conscience-compelling in a high degree. The men of military age who have not yet gone to the colours would see the Boy Scouts and Cadets training on the one side, and the older men, the men past forty, training on the other side, and for very shame they must do their share. They could not, and would not, be able to join the Volun- teers except for temporary •training purposes, as we have suggested elsewhere, and when the rest of the country was, as it were, rushing to arms they must either do the same, or else make the disgraceful admission that, though young and strong and not engaged in necessary work, they are going to shirk their duty.
To put it in another way. By coupling an appeal for Volunteer recruits with the appeal for recruits for the Regulars, Lord Derby and his new Department would create just that atmosphere which, as we pointed out last week, is the first requirement of a good recruiting move- ment. If the Volunteers are seen flocking to the colours with the pride and enthusiasm which will come from the feeling that after all they are not too old to take their place in home defence, they will draw after them the young men who are still abiding in the sheepfolds to listen to the bleating of the lambs.
Perhaps it will be objected that it will not be so easy to increase the numbers of the Volunteers from the four hundred thousand which they now reach to the million or two millions of which we have spoken. It may be asserted, indeed, that we have got all the men we can obtain. That is a delusion. There are plenty more men ready and willing to come forward as Volunteers if they are made to realize that it is their duty to do so, that the military authorities want them, and that they will be setting an example which is needed to the remnant of the younger men. But chief among these considerations will be the spreading of the knowledge that men are really wanted in the Volunteers. At present there is undoubtedly a feeling abroad that the Volunteers are fussy people who have forced themselves upon an un- willing and embarrassed Government, and that, instead of doing good by joining the Volunteers, men are merely worrying a good-natured War Office who would far rather be let alone. That of course, as we have shown in every department of our paper this week, is a great mistake. All soldiers who know the Volunteers recognize how useful they not only can be but already are.
How are we to bring home to our countrymen at large the duty of jjoining the Volunteers P We believe that one of the best ways, perhaps the very beat way, would be for the Government to accord somewhat more of official recognition to the Volunteers. Curiously enough, the way that this can be done is not by spending money upon them or by fussing or petting them, but simply by placing upon them greater burdens and obligations than they now sustain. The more the Government ask of the Volunteers, the more they will give and the more they will flock to the colours—provided, of course, that the Government ask for the work under proper Volunteer conditions, and do not .require impossibilities of men who by the very nature of things can only be part-timers. In view of these facts, we record with the greatest possible satisfaction that a Bill has been introduced into Parliament " to enable the services of Volunteers to be accepted in certain cases by His Majesty for purposes in connexion with the present war, and to make provision in relation thereto." Under this Bill the Army Council will be given power to make regulations for carrying the Act into effect, and also to make regulations in regard to the organization of Volun- teer Corps, to lay down their duties in case of invasion and other duties for which 'their services may be accepted, and to regulate also the appointment and promotion of officers, the enrolment and conditions of service of the members, and the maintenance of discipline. Powers are also sought to make those regulations applicable under the provisions of the Volunteer Act of 1863, great parts of which still remain on the statute-book. Finally, and this provision will be specially welcome, the Bill makes officers or men attached. to or working with Regulars or Territorials subject to military law exactly as if they were under the Army Act. This last regulation is of course coupled with a proviso exempting Volunteers from service outside the United Kingdom unless they offer themselves for the purpose. The passing of such a measure would. • we are convinced, act as a very powerful recruiting agency. Before we leave the subject, and for fear of confusion or misapprehension, let us say once more in the clearest way that in making the proposals we have made we are not now thinking of the Voluuteers and their interests. We are, as we have said, concentrating our efforts on the essential thing—the raising of recruits. That is the first object prescribed in all Volunteer organizations. We believe, however, that Lord Derby and those who will assist him will find that they cannot carry out their object to the full unless they array not merely the men of military age but the whole nation. We have reached a point where it is necessary to muster and enrol the whole of the British peopleboys, young men, middle-aged men, and even old men. When the enrolment has taken place each section must do its natural and proper work. The boys can help, as they are already helping, as Scouts and messengers. The men of military age are for the first fighting line, whether abroad, in the munition Sactories, on the railways, or at the plough. The middle-aged and the old must train themselves for digging and shooting at home should it come to invasion, and set free millions of hands and brains for more active service.
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