THE CONDITION OF THE ARMY.
Ithe condition of the Army is really what Mr. Arnold- 1 Forster describes it in a series of very trenchant letters which he is writing to the Times—and we fear that in the main it is—there is need for the most anxious solici- tude on the part of the nation. Granted the state of the Army to be what he asserts, the present moment is one for special vigilance. The Government is about to make a set of proposals for increasing the Army. But if our existing system is altogether wrong, it is clear that now is the time when it ought to be remodelled and reformed. If Parliament and the country are to be screwed up to the work of increasing the Army, it is essential that the reforms should be thorough and carried out in a businesslike manner. In other words, wo have reached the long-expected moment when it will be possible to put our military house in order, and we must see to it that the chance is taken advantage of. So good an opportunity may never occur again, and there- fore it is essential that we do not patch but really mend. The country is alive to the peril of having a weak Army, there is no disposition to grudge the money, and the public shows no intention of declaring that the advo- cates of reform are crying " Wolf !" Tremendous, then, must be the responsibility which will attach to those, whether Cabinet Ministers, permanent officials, or soldiers in high place, who miss the opportunity and fail to put the nation in the way of getting what it needs,—an Army which, if small in size, is thoroughly efficient, and recruited and organised on a businesslike basis. We fully recognise that this responsibility must fall upon the Executive and the administrators of our Army. The time for Committees and Commissions is past, and that for action has come. But those now responsible must remember that if their action has in the end inadequate results they will be marked men. If the steps they adopt do not give us a sound Army, and if they advise as sufficient what is not sufficient, it will be impossible for them to excuse themselves by saying that they, in reality, did what they could, and not what they would, or that they advised not what they thought was necessary, but only as much as they thought the country would stand,— that, in other words, they gave not the advice they deemed best, but the advice which they thought the country wanted to hear. It will not, that is, do for them to say at some future day, ' You would not hear truth and reason, and so we gave you what you wanted, —half-truths and unreason.' In a former article we in- clined to the opinion that it would be better, under the cir- cumstances, to improve and develop the existing system than to adopt a radical change. If, however, things are in reality as bad as Mr. Arnold-Forster represents them, it will be necessary to reconsider that opinion. If his facts cannot be shown to be erroneous, it is clear not only that the existing system has broken down altogether, but that every sort of ingenious device has been adopted to develop it and make it do its work, but without success. The plan, usually a most wise one, of trying to make an existing system work, rather than of casting it aside and adopting another, has, that is, been already attempted and has failed. Granted that this is the case, and it is difficult to read what Mr. Arnold-Forster says and not admit it, there is no room for a policy of development. But the Govern- ment apparently intend to adopt the policy of simple development,—of adding eight more battalions to the Army, with a few minor alterations as to pay and service. As we have said above, the responsibility for any course now adopted must necessarily be a very heavy one ; but in view of Mr. Arnold-Forster's facts we can hardly believe that those who intend to make these proposals fully realise this fact. It looks, we fear, as if they were asking for what they thought the country would like them to ask for, not for what they believe to be neces- sary.
The closer the problem of the Army is considered the more clear it becomes that what is at the root of all our troubles is the difficulty of getting recruits. If we could enlist as we wanted them any number of young men of from twenty to twenty-five, we should have comparatively little difficulty. But, practically, we cannot get recruits between twenty and twenty-five. We have, therefore, under one subterfuge or another to enlist nearly half our men at the age of sixteen or seventeen. But lads of this sort, though possibly good soldiers in the making, are not fit to be used in India, or Egy pt, or Africa, or the Mediterranean, or, in truth, anywhere except at home. We admit this officially by the wise rule which does not allow men to go abroad till they are twenty. But the effect of this most salutary and rational rule, if applied strictly, would be to keep half the Army at home ; for if you enlist thousands of boys at sixteen or seventeen, and keep them at home till they are twenty, it is clear that the first three or four years of their service must be at home. It happens, however, that the major part of our soldiers are wanted abroad, not at home. At present, then, we are enlisting men whom we cannot use abroad, and so cannot put to the very service for which we engage them. Of course the result has been to throw the whole system out of gear. When the rule not to send men abroad till twenty was made, it was obvious that men under twenty, or at any rate under nineteen—which would allow a year for training—ought not to have been enlisted. Yet we enlist comparatively few men at and above nineteen,—for the very sufficient reason, no doubt, that they do not come forward. Under these circumstances there were only two ph, s which it was possible for the War Office to adopt,—(1) to devise terms of service which would get recruits of nine- teen and over, or (2) to abolish the rule against sending men abroad till they were twenty. The War Office, in practice, adopted the second alternative. Nominally, they maintained their rule ; but they quaintly decreed that the Cape of Good Hope, Malta, Gibraltar, Crete, Cyprus, Bermuda, and Halifax (Nova Scotia) were places at home, and not places abroad. But sending lads under twenty to places with the climate of Gibraltar and Malta, contrary to an obviously wise, and indeed necessary, rule, is not the only proof that the War Office is at its wits' end for men,—we say " men" advisedly, for admit- tedly it can still get boys. In order to provide the troops required for garrisoning Gibraltar it had to invent the new scheme for sending the Guards abroad. Now, this rough sketch of the facts shows clearly that our present system is breaking down because we cannot get enough grown men to enlist. If we could we should not have to talk about the state of the Army. It might, and no- doubt would, need improvement; but there would be no talk, as there is at present, of the War Office not knowing where and how to turn for men soldiers. The possi- bility of being able to send a recruit abroad, without calling Crete or Cyprus a place in the Home District, i.e., the United Kingdom, would get over the chief difficulty which now confronts the War Office. The main thing to be done at present is, then, to discover conditions of service which, when offered, will induce young men fit for service to come forward and join the colours. That such a scheme can be devised we do not doubt. The first question to be asked is, "Have we at present any military body in which recruiting is successfully accomplished ? " The answer is, "The Marines." We can get as many Marines as we like, and of the best quality. Clearly, then, we ought to study the conditions of service which have proved popular with the Marines, and attempt to follow them. We ought also to do away with the foolish and irritating stoppages which now discredit the Army in the public mind. A shilling a day is regarded as the soldier's natural pay, but it is also considered mean and unfair that the soldier is not "all found." The soldier should have a bond-fade free kit, and free renewals for fair wear and tear, and also all his meals free. The only stoppages from his pay should be for injuries to his clothes and arms through carelessness. Next, we would classify soldiers just as sailors are classi- fied. The soldier who had made himself thoroughly efficient, and had learned to shoot well, should have a distinctive description and be paid at a higher rate.
These are, of course, only groundwork suggestions. It may be that more would have to be done to render the service popular—unless and until it is as popular to be a soldier as a sailor we shall never get a perfectly satisfac- tory Army—but what this should be is for the experts to say, and not for us. Some very competent authorities consider that the division of the Army into regiments for Indian and Colonial service, and regiments for home service, in time of peace would improve recruiting. This system would mean a short service (say three years) for the home regiments, and a long service (say twelve year's with the colours) for regiments to be employed on Indian and Colonial service. The result of this arrangement would be that the home Army would be almost exactly in the position occupied by the brigade of Guards up till last spring,—an Army recruited for home service and permanently stationed during peace in the United Kingdom. The Indian and Colonial regiments would . pass their time, or the greater part of their time, abroad. There is no doubt a great deal to be said for this plan on general grounds, but the really important mat- ter to consider is, would it attract more and a better class of recruits ? If it would, then great as would be the revolution, we would accept it. At any rate, this is a matter which must be considered before the final decision is arrived at. It is madness to talk about raising eight new battalions and not to grapple with the problem that underlies the whole question, the problem of attracting suitable recruits. We want an available Army, and the country must therefore insist that every man marked on the lists, and paid for as a British soldier, is at least nine- teen years of age and sound in body. But though we so strongly object to recruiting boys, and pretending that they are grown soldiers, we would under certain con- ditions make use of the fact that it is easy to get boys to enlist. We would every year enlist a certain number of boys, from fifteen to eighteen, under the following con- ditions. They should be called boy-recruits, not soldiers, and should be placed in special training camps till they were nineteen. They should, of course, receive their clothes and food and lodging free, and should have, say, a shilling a week pocket-money. At the end of their training—i.e., when nineteen —they should be drafted into the Army, well drilled, able to shoot and march, and in good condition to serve, exactly on the ordinary conditions. It may be said that we should not get many boys on such terms, but we believe we should. There are plenty of boys of fifteen and sixteen who would be glad to be kept as soldiers, and who, to get so kept, would agree to serve with the colours as soon as they were nineteen. Of course these boys in training must never be counted as soldiers, or appear in estimates of our military strength, but merely be regarded as soldiers in posse. Possibly there may be, beyond the expense, objections to this plan which we do not see, but at any rate it is worth considering. It would, we believe, ensure our getting at least ten thousand thoroughly trained young men admitted to the Army every year. If there were always, say, thirty thousand of these boys in training at various camps throughout the United Kingdom, the expense ought not to be above £30 a year per boy, or, say, in all not more than a million a year. Unless we are mistaken, that million, if it put every year ten thousand already trained soldiers into our Army, would be the cheapest bounty ever paid on recruiting.
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