The Lag in Recruiting
Even those who had most reason to expect few results from the recent recruiting campaign must have been startled by the figures quoted by the Under-Secretary for War in the House of Lords on Monday. In the Regular Army, said Lord Pakenham, 4,000 recruits a month are needed. In September last 1,868 were obtained. Anyone who has had any personal experience of the problem will have no difficulty in suggesting a dozen cogent reasons why the gap between intention and attainment is so disturbing. What is much less easy is to find a quick and practical means of closing it. Welcome as is the long overdue improvement in Service conditions it would be mistakenly optimistic to believe that this alone is enough to provide a remedy. Nor would it be any more correct to attribute the failure to the introduction of conscription, which may have resulted, it is suggested, in encouraging people to believe that voluntary recruitment is no longer necessary. A man, contrary to music-hall tradition, does not serve with the colours out of any patriotic motives, but because it provides him with a congenial profession. What is now necessary is to broaden that appeal and, paradoxically, the first step is the betterment of conditions existing when a man reaches the end of his service. At present too many have good reason to fear the conse- quences of being thrown on the labour-market as ex-Servicemen. What is immediately essential is that the Government should take steps to ensure employment for a man who has given the best years of his life for his country but who has still many useful years ahead of him. It is his minimum right that those years should not, as is now too often the case, be wasted.
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