NATIONAL TRAINING AND VOLUNTARY SERVICE.
LTO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your admirable article in last week's issue on "The Liberty Not to Fight for• One's Country" you alluded to the great benefits which our• Spectator lads derived from their• six months' training ; but you omitted to mention a result which, in view of official opinions recently expressed, is of very great importance. It has been asserted that compulsory training would exercise an influence adverse to voluntary recruiting for the Regular Army ; but a lesson of the Spectator Experi- mental Company is that the exact contrary would be the case. We had only one man who had previously made up his mind to enlist, yet to my certain knowledge no less than thirty-five are now serving in the Army, and I believe that three others have more recently enlisted. Do not these figures speak for themselves, suggesting very forcibly that rappetit vient en mangeant ? Nevertheless I admit that the nature of the repast provided must necessarily have much to do with the enjoyment of it. Our men were not " messed about"; they always knew when they were " for• it," and when they were "not for it." In other words, they knew that they might safely arrange cricket matches for Wednesday after- noons, while on other days—except Saturdays and Sundays— their• work, which began at 7 a.m., would not be finished until 4.30 p.m. at the earliest, or occasionally not before midnight. " Messing about," not work, is the stumbling-block to recruiting.—I am, Sir, &c.,
• A. W. A. PoLLocx, Lieut.-Colonel. Wingfield, Godalming.
[Colonel Pollock might have added to these remarkable figures that one at least—and we think more—of the Spectator lads was unable to pass the doctor, and thus failed to get into the Army, and that in other• cases the parents objected to their sons enlisting. Very nearly forty per cent. of the Company desired to enter the Army after their experience of an exceptionally arduous recruit training lasting for six months. Hard work under fair conditions does not repel but attracts the normal healthy Briton.—ED. Spectator.]
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