"COMPULSORY VOLUNTEERING."
DURING the worst period of the war, and while the question of conscription was much in the air, a body of young colliers were disiussing the whole problem from various points of view. Their con- clusion was una.nireous and very English. If conscrip- tion were "passed," they declared that this would no longer be a free country, but they added that they were strongly in favour of "compulsory volunteer- ing." That is very much the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Samuel Smith in his very able and manly letter in the Times of Monday. With a portion of that letter we are strongly in accord ; but before we criticise it, and set forth our points of difference and agreement, let us say how greatly we respect and admire the good sense and patriotism that inspire the letter. It must have been an extremely difficult, and in a sense disagreeable, task for a man of Mr. Samuel Smith's views, or rather former views, to write such a letter, but holding that it had become his duty to express his opinion openly, he did not hesitate to speak out. Such sincerity and courage are the basis of all true patriotism, and as long as the country can count upon men like Mr. Samuel Smith—and we do not doubt that there are thousands like him—sacrificing all notions of amour propre, and facing all accusations of deserting old faiths and old traditions, we need have little fear for the future of the nation. Mr. Samuel Smith has shown the true spirit of good citizenship,—the spirit which has always been shown at times of need in both branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, and has made them uncon- querable.
Let us take first the points on which we differ from Mr. Smith. His main contention is that we must adopt some form of compulsory military training far the whole of our male population because we are face to face with a hostile Europe which is armed to the teeth and can count its soldiers by the million. He holds that if, for some reason, the Fleet should fail us, we should be liable to invasion by these millions. Therefore he contends that we must create a population trained to arms ready to meet the emergency, and to protect us if we lost command of the sea either temporarily or permanently while the bulk of our Army was away on foreign service. We shall not attempt to deal with Mr. Samuel Smith's example of Nelson being, as he puts it, decoyed away to the West Indies, though there his history is, we believe, at fault, and will assume the possibility of our losing the command of the sea. What we desire to insist on is that if we lost command of the sea five million men in arms in this country could not save us from ruin. If we lose command of the sea we starve. In the Life of Napoleon, by Mr. Holland Rose, reviewed by us in our issue of to-day, the author shows how, even when we imported far less in the way of food-stuffs than now and. held com- mand of the sea, the feeding of the country caused serious difficulty. What would be the result at the present day if we actually lost command of the sea ? Clearly, there would be no need to invade us ; we must make peace almost at any price. The one thing, indeed, which we should pray for would be an attempt at invasion, in order that we might by a desperate effort crush and capture our enemy and have something in our hands with which to negotiate,—i.e., some eighty thousand prisoners of war. But no foreign Power would be so foolish as to grant our prayers and run the risk of sending an army into England and exposing it to the thousand bad chances that may attend the despatch of a great army across the sea. Whether the population were or were not under compulsory military service would make little difference to the enemy's decision. In a word, no one would attempt invasion while we held command of the sea. When we had lost it, the enemy would prefer starving us into terms to sending an invading army into a land desperate with rage and famine. We hold, therefore, that it would be a mistake to introduce compulsory military service here if the object is to insure us from in- vasion. We can only be made safe from invasion by and through the Fleet. If we command the sea, we shall not need this form of defence. If we lose command of the sea, then five million armed men will not save us.
But though we hold that nothing must ever distract our attention from the Navy and from the supreme importance of keeping it in the fullest strength and vigour, there is an aspect of 311.r. Samuel Smith's proposal for universal military service which has always greatly attracted us, and which we have on several occasions advocated in these columns. Mr. Samuel Smith dwells strongly on the great value of the physical training which goes with military service. He notes the improvement made in all lads by a course of drill and military discipline of the right kind, and realises —a fact often insisted upon in these columns by our correspondent, Mr. Horsfall—how, owing to the bad cosi: ditions of our city life, our vast town-bred population is degenerating from lack of physical culture. He holds, that is, that the youth of this country would be very greatly improved physically—we should add morally, and have little doubt that he would also—if the right kind of universal military training were introduced here. We are inclined to agree. We hold that we are courting a tremendous national peril by our neglect of the physical condition of our town-bred population, and we hold also that universal military training of the right ld.nd would. go a long way to meet the evil. It is for this reason that we have advocated, as our readers may remember, that just as every boy is compelled by law to undergo a certain amount of literary training, so he should be obliged to undergo physical training of a military kind. We should, however, as at present advised, though we confess that we should like to see the whole matter more fully discussed, be inclined to go a step further with Mr. Samuel Smith, and would organise that compulsory physical training of a military kind so as to increase our military strength and give us a great reservoir of men who had received the essential elements of a military training,—a reservoir from which in times of stress and peril we could (of course, on a purely voluntary basis) draw large bodies of soldiers for oversea service. Mr. Samuel Smith's proposal is "that each able-bodied man at twenty years of age should elect to serve either in the Militia or Volun- teers, and. be liable for five years in case of emergency, to be called out solely for home defence. This would give, roughly, two hundred. thousand recruits annually, or a, million between twenty and twenty-five years of age, which would be ample, and would probably never be called for. The existence of such a" force would prevent dreams of invasion. In a serious war, when the Regular Army was withdrawn, perhaps two years' recruits, or four hundred thousand men, might be temporarily embodied, but that would be enough. Speaking broadly, the tax would be six months' service in the Militia the first year, and. perhaps a fortnight each of the following four years, and in the Volunteer force some addition to the present very moderate requirements." That this is per se a reasonable and practical proposal for obtaining universal military service we do not doubt, but in our opinion it goes unnecessarily far, and would impose an unnecessarily severe financial burden on the nation. We should under it obtain universal physical and mili- tary training, but we should spend far more money than is required to obtain the desired result. We should prefer to make the period during which lads should get their training that between eighteen and twenty-one. We would, that is, enact that every lad must have gone through his physical military training before he was twenty-one. During those three years we would require every lad to serve either in the Militia or Yeomanry, drawing a Militia- man's or a Yeoman's pay, of course, or else in the Volun.- teers under the existing Regulations. The Militiaman would, as now, serve for five months as a recruit, but we would arrange that he should, wherever possible, live at home during that period, and not in barracks. He should go to be trained as he goes to school. After his five months' training he should have in the first year a month in camp, and in the two succeeding years a week in camp each year. We should, however, provide, in order to limit the expense as much as possible, that if the commanding officer of any corps certified after the first year's training (i.e., after the five months' recruit training and one month in camp) that a recruit (1) had made him- self thoroughly efficient, and (2) had passed a certain standard of marksmanship, he should be excused all further training during the remainder of the three-year period, saving only an annual appearance at the butts, on which occasion he must make a certain score, and, if he failed, return till he had made it. In other words, those lads who showed that they knew their business and had obtained their training should not be kept on at an ex- pense to the country, but should receive the reward of their good training and good shooting. The result would be that boys who had taken the trouble to work in school cadet corps, whether rich or poor, would be able to get their exemption certificates after six months. It would, of course, be a matter of Treasury and War Office policy to grant as many, and not as few, of the certificates as possible, and they would never be withheld except where there was sound reason. But though we would get the whole training course over before a boy, was twenty-one, we would give the country the right to call upon the man's service in case of in- vasion, or imminent peril of invasion, till he had reached the age of forty. During the three year training period the lad, could, of course, be sailed to the colours at any time, and would be if his Militia battalion were embodied. It remains to be said that those lads who elected to join a Volunteer corps instead of joining the Militia or Yeomanry must make themselves efficient each year from eighteen to twenty-one. Thus those who wanted pay or who wanted to be able to get an efficiency certificate, and so be clear, would elect to do their training in the Militia or Yeomanry. On the other hand, those who were not anxious to get pay, and preferred the easier and pleasanter conditions of the Volunteers, would join the Volunteers. The education of men destined for the professions, it may be noticed, need not be interfered with. They would, by belonging first to a public-school Volunteer corps and then to a University corps, be able to complete their three ,years in a Volunteer battalion before they had finished their education. Need- less to say, there would be no exemptions of any kind. The son of the millionaire must serve just as must the son of the labourer,—and, we may add, would in many cases get just as much gain from the physical training. Indeed, we are not sure that the lads belonging to the middle-class town families would not, in truth, be the greatest gainers of all. In many cases, especially in the big manufacturing towns, they want that which is given', by physical training of a military kind almost more than any other class.
Before we leave the subject let us state that we do not mean on the raiment occasion to do more than indicate in the very roughest outline how the nation might, without undue expense, satisfy two needs,—i.e., give its young men the physical training of which they are often in such very great need, and also provide a reservoir of men with the elements of a military training from whom valuable soldiers could be quickly organised. But to fill in this outline satis- factorily a great deal of care and consideration would be required. For example, there is the question of officers. Personally, we should meet this difficulty by reducing the number of commissioned officers, and teaching the men to act independently, and to look for moral leadership rather than for detailed orders to their officers ; but we are aware that such a proposal would be very strongly opposed by many men of experience. Above all, there is the ques- tion of expense. In our view, it is imperative to keep the cost down, and to do so we would make the uniform and equipment of the citizen-soldier as simple as possible. Of course, simplicity would be strongly opposed, for the sailor is the only person in these islands who is allowed to wear a sensible, useful dress without demur. No doubt for the moment .the active-service uniform of the soldier—a Norfolk jacket and trousers—is sound enough, but how long will he be allowed to keep it when the war is over ?
These, however, are questions too large for discussion at the end of an article. We will only say again that though we cannot support Mr. Samuel Smith's proposal on the ground of national defence from invasion, we should be willing to consider favourably any reasonable and well- thought-out modification of it which would secure universal physical training of a military kind for lads, to be completed before they reach twenty-one and take up their full citizenship. That will help us to keep in check the demoralising physical results of city life, and will give us a great reservoir of men on which to draw in case the need should arise to call for volunteers to fight the battles of the Empire overseas. We do not need universal military service on military grounds, but we are by no means sure that we do not need a reasonable form of it for moral and physical reasons.
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