THE RECRUITING DIFFICULTY.
FOR eminently practical people, the English are on some points eminently incompetent persons. They are quite aware that they must have an Army ; they have decided, with a resolve which it is impossible to shake, that it shall be a voluntary one ; and they are assured every year by the most trustworthy experts, that if they will pay ordinary wages, they can have as good a supply of soldiers as exists anywhere in the world,—yet they will not pay ordinary wages. Every three years or so, the country goes into a, panic, declares that the Army is getting "depleted," or screams about the " weediness' of recruits, sometimes talking as if they could not carry their rifles, or would be overthrown like children by the first enemy they came across. Generals write the gloomiest reports, doctors say the privates will all die if they are fatigued, and the newspapers are full of letters bemoaning the deficiencies of English soldiers in height, chest- measurement, and general physique. Business men shake their heads and agree, the old lament the past glories of the Army, and the immense class of men who, though they have no connection with than, take an interest in all military matters, quote the boyishness of the service as proof of the evil influence of democracy. Yet all this while everybody knows, officers, doctors, amateur critics, and all, that they are for the most part talking nonsense ; that Englishmen are just as ready to enlist as they ever were • that the supply obtainable is more than sufficient ; and ;hat the single and satisfactory reason why the article wanted is not instantly available is, that the employer does not offer ordinary market rates. The country adheres decade after decade to the old terms, or insufficient im- provements on the old terms, and consequently, as wages are everywhere rising, it has more and more to put up with the residuum of the supply. That is the whole source of the evil. So far from the service being disliked, the Inspector-General reports that all its departments were full last year except the infantry, and. that they are only a little behindhand, the single substantial want being of men a little older—a year would do—and therefore a little more completely set up in physique. They are not inferior men at all. On the contrary, the officers all report that after a year's service, with regular exercise, regular food, and healthy quarters, they are quite as good as it is indis- pensable they should be. They are simply too young at first, and they are too young because they are offemed big boys' wages, and not men's. If we offered men's wages, we should get men without the smallest difficulty, there being, since short service was introduced and flogging was abolished, no more repugnance to the Army than there is to any other rather monotonous line of life. To anybody who denies that this is a true statement, we would address a single question. Does he doubt that if the country added five shillings a week to the private soldier's pay, the recruiting offices would be swarming with young men just of the kind a capable officer would like to send to drill ? Yet if we did offer that sum, the soldier would not, from his own point of view, which, when we are buying free labour, is the only thing to be considered, be receiving ten shillings a, week in silver !
We know exactly what we shall be told in a hundred letters,—that the soldier is paid more than 59. a week, that he is clothed and fed and lodged, that he has all manner of promotions to expect, and that, in fact, he is as well off as any half-skilled labourer; and we answer : "Then why are there not two applicants for every vacancy, as there are for everything else ? " There is no Union interfering, there is no specially hard labour exacted, and the English are not such a timid people that a. remote chance of getting shot should weigh so heavily in the balance. The plain truth of the matter is, that the recruit, in his own belief, when he sells his liberty, parts with as many chances as he gains ; that he hardly looks forward at all ; and that the wage which tempts him is the wage in silver, his other advantages having hardly any genuine importance to his mind. He wants a certain amount of money to spend as he pleases, be it on food, or lodging, or anything else ; and if he does not get it, he draws back. He does so in every other department of life—for instance, in domestic service —and why should he be expected. to do otherwise in the Army P A very little more would tempt him, but if that little is not forthcoming; he draws back, and leaves the "career with its noble chances" to men a little hungrier than himself, or a little less competent in the way of developed strength. If the demand to be made on the country were enormous, we could understand the reluctance to pay full wages, for in every country new taxation is severely felt. Every- body talks about the burden which conscription must be in Prussia, and no doubt it must be a heavy one ; but suppose Prussia were offered the alternative of the taxation necessary to keep up the same Army by voluntary recruiting, would Prussians accept the boon ? We do not believe a word of it, unless the taxes fell on the rich alone, and even then they would be frightened, being intelligent arithmeticians, by the drain upon the wages fund. The first reason for conscription in all countries is, that where great armies are needed, it is cheaper to pay in kind than to pay in cash. If the demand were too heavy, we should not expect our people to concede it until a panic occurred ; but it is nothing of the kind. An extra half-crown a week would do for the present, being just the addition which has been made within the past three years to nearly every trade in the country except the agricultural labourer ; and 2s. 6d. a week is £650,000 a year for every 100,000 men, or say, for the whole Army, in round numbers, deducting the Indian contingent, a million a year, a halfpenny on the Income-tax, or sixpence a quarter on imported. corn. Is that really so beyond our means that we should sit down and cry that we never can have an Army, or that our soldiers will always be beaten, or that we must resort to a conscription ? We ought not to be asked even for that sum, because the money ought to be saved in other directions where there must be needless expenditure ; but granting that it is necessary, is it beyond our means ? We do not believe a word of it, and are simply amazed at the want of nerve which induces successive Governments to endure partial inefficiency in an indispensable portion of the public service rather than explain the truth to the House of Commons, and ask for the necessary supplies. They think, of course, that the Opposition would make capital out of the demand, and would talk about "bloated armaments," and forget entirely that since they last settled soldiers' wages, the suffrage has been changed, and that this is pre- cisely the one military charge which the new voters will consider reasonable. There is not a cottager in the country who does not consider the soldiers underpaid, or who would not hear of a rise in the minimum wages of the service with a certain satisfaction, as if he were going to get something for himself or his second boy. The money, we feel certain, would be voted without discontent in the country, and if the total seemed too great, arid the military departments were compelled to pare down elsewhere, so much the better. We cannot nowadays "get to China with bread and iron ;" but the first condition of getting there is to have a constant supply of sufficient soldiers old enough and big enough to do the work ; and the only way to get them—or anything else—is to pay market rates.
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