scheme is examined, the clearer does it become that in
all that concerns the Militia and the Volunteers it is founded altogether on wrong principles, and if carried out must result in the destruction of those forces. Mr. Arnold- Forster, though, of course, denying the unsoundness of his .principles, would probably admit that in the case of the Militia his intention was abolition. In the case of the Volunteers, however, be is no doubt perfectly sincere when he tells us that his sole desire is to strengthen and improve them. But admitting this to the full, what we have to consider is not the goodness of Mr. Arnold-Forster's inten- tions, but the practical effects of his proposals. These, we .believe, can have only one result,—to destroy the Volunteer . Force.
We dealt last week chiefly with the Militia proposals. On the present occasion we shall speak only of the Volunteers. Let us see first what are the details of the new scheme in .regard to the Volunteers, as set forth in the explanatory Memorandum. To begin with, Mr. Arnold.-Forster assumes that the object with which the Volunteers are maintained is the defence of these islands against hostile raids. On. this assumption, he proceeds to declare that the efficiency of the force becomes more important than its numerical strength. His next step is to assume that the establishment of 347,075 men is, as far as numbers are concerned, in excess of what is required. for war. .Consequently ".a reduction of the numbers and an increase in the efficiency are obviously indicated." Accordingly, he proposes to reduce the establishment to 200,000 men, and the actual strength to 180,000. To these premises, and therefore to the conclusions drawn from them, we desire to present a direct negative. To begin with, we entirely refuse to admit that the only object of the Volunteers is to help to defend the country from hostile raids. We agree, of course, that this is one of the objects with which the Volunteers are maintained ; but it is only one of three objects, all, in our opinion, equally important. The other two are (1) the provision of a school of arms in which the manhood of the nation can be trained in the elements of the soldier's duty, and (2) the provision of a reservoir of civilian soldiers from which in times of stress soldiers can be drawn for oversea service. The first of these objects is always obvious, and though the Volunteers with careful and sympathetic handling might, no doubt, become a better school of arms than they are, it cannot be denied that they have done work in this respect which deserves the deepest gratitude of the nation. The second object, the provision of a reservoir of trained men available for over- sea service—though here again the function is capable of expansion—was made visible to the nation during the Boer War. The Volunteers gave a considerable number of officers and some 7,000 men whom they had trained to the Imperial Yeomanry. They gave also 594 officers and close on 20,000 men, directly and in organised units through their service companies, to the Regular Army. In other words, the Volunteers regarded as a school of arms and a reservoir provided a total of 26,757 officers and men for oversea service,—and men and officers, as was acknowledged at the time, though it is now the fashion to ignore the fact, of excellent quality. The provision of such a force had an immense effect on the conduct of the late war ; and had such reinforcements been available for the Crimea or the Indian Mutiny, who can deny that the task of the Govern- ments which carried on those wars would have been im- mensely lightened ? Therefore we say that any scheme of Volunteer reorganisation which ignores, as does that of Mr. Arnold-Forster, these objects of the Volunteer Force, is inadequate, and stands condemned. Mr. Arnold-Forster's premises are unsound, and so are his conclusions. But even assuming that his major premise in regard to the objects of the Volunteers is sound, and that all we want from them is the provision of some 180,000 " efficient " men, his scheme would still be fallacious. And for this reason. The standard of efficiency which he applies is radically bad, and would produce, not effective, but in- effective Volunteers. Mr. Arnold-Forster evidently imagines that by crowding on more and longer camp attendances, and by exacting other rigid tests, he will obtain better soldiers. He will, as a rule, do nothing of the kind. He will for the most part obtain less, not more, men efficient in the true sense. What makes &Volunteer regiment efficient is the presence in the ranks of men of good intelligence, good physique, good position, and earnestness in their work. But these are just the men, as any one who knows the Volunteers at first hand will testify, who are being driven out, and will be driven out still more if Mr. Arnold- Forster is allowed to break the Volunteer on the Pro- crustean bed of what he misnames efficiency. The mechanical standard of efficiency which Mr. Arnold- Forster wishes to apply will weed out the best men and leave the worst. A moment's reflection will show that this must be so. Who is the man in civil employment who can most easily be spared for a long spell of camp, or who can find time to obey this or that stringent regulation ? Is it the foreman at a big works, or big factory, or big store,—the man who is accustomed to handle men ? Is it the capable professional man or assistant to a professional man ? Is it the successful, able man in a small way who is building up a business ? Of course it is not. The man who can always be spared, who has little or no difficulty in " getting leave," who is not much missed in any capacity, and who can always find time is the unintelligent, un- pushing man who is employed in a subordinate capacity, and whose presence or absence at any particular moment is really immaterial,—the man for whom a substitute can always be found, the man whose job can be done quite as well by anybody else. These are the men who can satisfy a mechanical test of efficiency, and who can conform to the rigid regulations of the War Office. They make no objections to attending compulsory camps, and find little difficulty in complying with " War Office require- ments." Therefore they are the men who will remain in the Volunteers, while the men who will be forced to leave because they are so much wanted elsewhere will be in in- telligence, in physique, in position, in maturity, the pick of the battalion. As a justification of our assertions, we would point to the figures as to the falling off of Volunteers in the London district owing to the compulsory camps given in an official Return asked for by Sir Howard Vincent. The Return shows that the eight leading London corps (Queen's Westminsters, London Rifle Brigade, Inns of Court, London Scottish, Artists, Civil Service, St. George's, and London Irish), which on July 1st, 1901, had an aggregate strength of 285 officers and 8,900 men, have lost 42 officers and close on 3,000 men, or about 33 per cent. The total loss of Volunteers in the home district is already 150 officers and 10,452 men, and this will be greatly increased, it is said, by the end of the Volunteer year. But perhaps it will be urged that the loss of these men is really a gain, because they were inefficient and useless. If that is the contention, we would suggest that it should be made to any one who knows the condition of the London corps. We venture to assert that the answer will be that the Volunteers are not losing their worst, but their best men, and that in no true sense has the efficiency of the regiments been increased by the loss of the men who have gone. The men who are gone and going are the men who could least be spared in the regiment, as in their own work.
But this process of wastage of the best men will be immensely intensified under Mr. Arnold-Forster's scheme. His plan of driving all the so-called " efficients" into some sixty or seventy regiments, and keeping the rest of the Volunteers in battalions which will be officially earmarked as inefficient, or at any rate as of second-rate efficiency, can have but one result. The picked regiments will, for the most part, be found to have shed their best men, and to have retained the men who are very little wanted any- where, and so are able to comply with stringent regula- tions; while the battalions of secondary efficiency will become unpopular, as anything and everything in these islands marked " Second-rate," whether justly or un- justly, rightly or wrongly, always does. In a word, Mr. Arnold-Forster's scheme, if forced upon the Volunteers, must inevitably ruin the force. If he is allowed, he will kill the Militia on purpose with one barrel, and the Volunteers by mistake with the other. That the process is called Army reform, and the strengthening and improve- ment of the military resources of the nation, will be small consolation after the deed is done.
We have, unfortunately, little space left in which to write of the true way of increasing the numbers and efficiency of the Volunteers. Speaking generally, however, we may say that what we should do would be greatly to increase the elasticity of the force. We would try to create a real, and not a mechanical, test of efficiency. We would give a grant per man, but we would also give a large regi- mental gmntbased on the all-round efficiency of the regiment judged by its capacity to march, by its general mobility, by its shooting, and by its behaviour on field-days. As to camp, we would allow the greatest possible latitude to the commanding officer. Finally, we would add a " Volunteer Reserve" to every regiment. Men who had been efficient for three years running should be encouraged to remain in their regiments as Reservists, and so earn a grant of, say, 5s. per man for their corps. In order to prevent abuses, each Reservist should be required to appear in Uniform on two field-days during the year. In this way we believe that ultimately some 200,000 extra men, and very useful men, might be kept with the Volunteer Force. These, however, are matters which cannot be discussed at the end of an article. We only mention them to show how many ways there are in which the Volunteer Force could be in- creased in numbers, and also, we believe, in true efficiency, if the attempt were made to treat it on rational lines. We must never forget that one of the things we want to do is to pass as many men as we can through its ranks, and so to give as large a portion of the nation as possible a training in the use of arms.
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