TOPICS OF THE D.Y.
"WHEN THE PEOPLE WILLINGLY OFFERED THEMSELVES."
AS our readers know, we are strong advocates of compulsory and universal military training and service. We hold, however, that it would be much
better that such a system should be inaugurated in peace and not in war. It is as a preparation for war, or rather a preparation to prevent war, that we desire it. It is not the nations that are strong in men and munitions, but those that are weak, that are liable to attack.
Now, however, that we are in the midst of war we would
far rather rely, if possible, on the voluntary system, and get the men needed in such vast numbers without compulsion.
We want the words from the Song of Deborah, " When the people willingly offered themselves," to be the motto of 1914. Though we have not the slightest fear that the establishment of compulsion would lead to disturbance or resistance, we realize that it would cause a certain amount of opposition and ill-feeling among limited classes of the population. Therefore if we can manage without com- pulsion it will be very much to the good. We do not, at a moment like this, want to have dissentient voices, even though they should be very low and might be ignored. The Government and the Liberal Party, who have always disliked compulsion, are of course even more anxious than we are to avoid it now. Yet, strangely enough, they are not giving the voluntary system the chance that they ought to give it. By the irony of fate, it is left to the Spectator, which has so long and so persistently advocated com- pulsion, to point out how the Government may still avoid recourse to compulsion. At present it is not too much to say that they are not making any efficient effort to avoid it, although they have the means ready to their hand. Yet the time is running out.
The Cabinet have partially adopted the plan of scientific recruiting first advocated two months ago in these columns —the plan of using the Parliamentary register of house- holders as the means for a direct and personal appeal to men of military age. No doubt when the results of this appeal are tabulated, and the Government know where the weak spots are from the geographical point of view, they will publish the quotas, and show where the population has done its duty and where it has failed, thus putting to shame certain districts and giving honour to others. That is well as far as it goes, but unfortunately the Government have omitted what in our opinion is an absolutely essential part of our plan for scientific recruit- ing. In spite of the weariness which we feared we might create in our readers' minds, we have insisted week by week that the direct appeal to men of military age through the householders will not be given a fair chance of success unless the Government take the country into their con- fidence at the same time. The nation should be told specifically and not in vague terms of the danger in which it stands from raids, and infinitely more, of course, from a prolonged war. Then the appeal should be made to all those of military age : " What will you do to help ? " It is true that the canvass of the householder is accom- ied by an excellent letter signed by Mr. Asquith, Mr. onar Law, and Mr. Henderson. But that is not enough. As any business man accustomed to popular appeals could have told the Government, the ground should have been prepared some days before the letters went out. A favourable atmosphere for the direct appeal should have been first created. The way to have created such an atmosphere can easily be described. The King should have addressed a direct message to his people, which should have been sent in the first place to the House of Commons, and then published broadcast in every newspaper in the land ; and it should have been not merely published on one day as news, but kept standing for a week at least. The wording of this message might have been quite safely left to the King's own initiative, for no man has a better command of simple and moving language—language which can be easily understood, and goes home and carries with it the pledge of sincerity. Such a direct personal message should not merely have been endorsed by the King's responsible advisers, but should have been supported by them in a grave yet perfectly frank and
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unsensational statement of the situation in which the nation stands, of the need of men, of the terrible risks which the country must run if we do not get enough men, and of how those risks can be met and reduced to very modest proportions if only we will make the sacrifice
required to get the men. The Government, in fine, should have told the country what a prolonged war will mean, and should have told it also that only by raising more men can the prolongation of the war be pre-
vented. " A thin red line" is an incentive to the German Government, and indeed to every German, to hold on a
little longer in the hope that the line will break. On the other hand, a " thick red line " will make the German Government and every German feel with a sense of despair that the game is up, and that he had better try to make peace. Let any man think what the German feeling would be if we had three million men already enlisted and in training to help to end the war.
Next the Government ought, in our opinion, to tell the country of the measures they are rightly taking to guard us from the raids of a desperate enemy. The Government know, and they ought to let the country know, that the more hopeless the position becomes for the Germans on the Continent, the more probable it is that they will try the gambler's last stake, and see whether they cannot win back all they have lost and more by throwing two hundred thousand men on these shores. The proposition sounds a mad one, and in our belief is so, but that is no reason why the Germans should not try it. We know by their land tactics that impossibilities neither dismay them nor prevent them from hurling themselves on the enemy. That if the Germans do land we shall be able to give a very good account of ourselves we firmly believe; but does any one wish to see a six weeks' campaign in England, even if it ended, as it would, in the complete destruction of the enemy ? Any Germans who gained a foothold here would assume that unless they could win the day they were doomed men. They would therefore not only fight with extreme desperation, but would think their way of salvation was to terrorize the places occupied by them in a manner to which the terrorization of Belgium would be as nothing. The dread created by finding them- selves isolated in this country, as they very soon would be, would be the excuse for giving up the counties in their grip to military execution. No doubt good recruiting would not altogether stop the risks of a raid, but who can doubt that the raiders would be greatly daunted by the thought that this country was bristling with men ready to defend it, and not, as the Germans foolishly fancy, bled white of its fighting soldiers ? If we have plenty of men, a raid need have no terrors as far as our national independence is concerned, and that is the only thing that matters. If we have not got enough men, a raid is a. much more serious affair.
A reasoned and clear explanation to this effect when put before the country would no doubt produce for a. day or two intense anxiety, or, if you will, quasi-panic, but, as we said last week, that anxiety would soon pass away, and it would be replaced by a sense of much greater security—a sense of security based upon the fact that the nation had faced and understood the situation, and not upon the muddle-headed indifference of half- wakened men. After the Government had taken the country into their confidence, we should hear no more of the statements which now come from all over the country that the people, as a whole, do not regard the war seriously. As a correspondent points out in our columns this week, there is a large part of the population, especially in the industrial districts, who still take football far more seriously than they do the campaign on the Continent or our own naval warfare. When the country had been brought to realize the true situation, the Government's appeal would fall, we are sure, not upon deaf but upon eager ears, and the men required to fill the ranks— and also to prevent the breakdown of the voluntary system—would be at once procured. What, however, the Government appear to be going to do is to make the appeal first, and then later consider the creation of the atmosphere of which we have spoken—the atmo- sphere that would be brought into being by their taking the country into their confidence. The result can only be disaster to the voluntary system. All responsible persons, whether in or outside the Government, know that we must have the men, and they know also that we are not going to let the country perish for want of them any more than did Abraham Lincoln and his supporters in the North. Therefore it is as certain as that the sun will rise to-morrow that, if the voluntary system does not give us enough men, we shall have to resort to compulsion. And yet the Government, who dread compulsion, hesitate to take the nation into their confidence in the way we have suggested! Though we know ourselves that the belief is unjust, we do not wonder that many people believe that the Government would at heart prefer compulsion. At any rate, they are steering straight for it. While there is still a ray of hope that the Government may carry out the essential part of our scheme of scientific recruiting—that of taking the nation into their confidence in an open and not a hole-and-corner way—there is a very important point drawn from American experience which we should like, even at the eleventh hour, to press upon the Cabinet. They ought to remind the nation that if we cannot get the men we want under the voluntary system, and if in the end we have to fall back on compulsion, it will not be right, or indeed possible, to give to the men taken by compulsion the generous terms which are very properly offered to the volunteer. In any case, of course, the men who come forward voluntarily will have the bargain made with them by the State kept to the uttermost letter. The men taken compulsorily would, however, be on a different footing, and we do not see how they could expect to receive any better treatment than the French or German conscripts in pay or pensions, or allowances to their wives and families. The men must, of course, be well fed and clothed, and their dependants must not be allowed to starve, but they would have no claim to such special consideration as the war volunteer enjoys. The Government would in effect do what Abraham Lincoln did—see to it that the terms offered to the volunteer were better than those conceded to the men who persisted in not coming forward until they were compelled. It is unpleasant enough in any case to write like this. It is doubly unpleasant when we feel certain that if our rulers would only bring home to the people the true position, and treat them not like children but as responsible persons, they would get all the men they want.
It is not fair to ask men to make the tremendous sacrifices that are necessary unless you tell them at the same time of the imperative need for such sacrifices, and tell them in a way that they cannot mistake and which will enlighten the sleepy quite as much as the wideawake. For remember that at least fifty per cent. of the population are as drowsy as ever — quite unaware that anything particular is happening, or, at any rate, anything which they need worry themselves about. " They'd soon let us know if there really was," is the thought at the back of the minds of millions.
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