THE ATTITUDE OF YOUNG ENGLISHMEN TOWARDS MILITARY SERVICE. • T "question

whether the Spectator Experimental Company will have been turned into a body of competent infantry soldiers in the course of six months can only be decided after careful inspection by the military authorities. The " Yes " or " No " to be given in this case does not, however, by any means exhaust the interest of the Experiment. For example, the formation of a company of men drawn from different parts of the country and from very various occupations provides an opportunity for testing the feeling of young Englishmen, chosen more or less at random, in regard to military service. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, a series of questions has been put to the hundred and five members of the Company, and answers bare been received from them of no little significance. The following were the questions put :- "I.—What was your object in joining the Spectator Experi- mental Company ?

(a) Did you think it would improve your chances of getting on if you had had six months' military training ?

(b) Did you feel you would be a better man all round if you knew how to shoot and how to defend your country if needful ?

(c) Did you ever think of joining the Militia P (d) If so, why did you not join it?

(e) Shall you, if you find your future employment makes it possible, join the Volunteers ?

(f) Should you like to come out in future for a week's training every year? II.—What was your occupation before you joined?

III.—What do you intend to do when you leave?

IV.—Do you think that a force like the Militia, but formed , from a higher stamp of man, and trained like the Spectator Experimental Company for six months to begin with, and after that called out only for one week a year—shooting and a little drill to be done in men's spare time like the Volunteers—would be popular and likely to get recruits ?"

Before dealing with the answers in detail it should be stated that they were of a very genuine kind. There was no attempt, except, perhaps, in one instance, to reply to any of the questions in a jocular spirit, and it is also to be noted that the great majority of the answers were in no sense conventional, or merely repetitions of views which the young men concerned might have picked up from the newspapers. The answers bear a strictly individual character, and are plain and straightforward in every sense. To begin with, sixty-two men out of the hundred and five declare that their object in joining the Company was to obtain a military training ; while the remaining forty-three state that their object was to obtain physical benefit. In one or two cases mental benefit was added.. These answers strike us as very significant. They show that what we may term a sample batch of the youth of. England realise the great practical advantage of military training. They like military training for its own sake, but they also realise the immense benefit to be derived from an improved physical condition. A good many men, it is to be noted, join military training and physical development together in their answers, and, indeed, from the general tone of the answers, it is clear that military training, physical .improvement, and the patriotic desire to be:ready in case of emergency are bound together in their minds. • It must not be supposed, however, that the patriotic feeling appears in any " high-falutin' " form, or that there is any of that public waving of the flag which is so distasteful to Englishmen of all ages and classes. We select a very typical answer, in which the patriotic intention is apparent, though expressed, and rightly expressed, in very sober terms :- "What was your object in joining the Spectator Experimental Company ? "

" To get an insight into the British Army so as to be of some use should necessity arise, and also for the benefit of my health."

To question I. (a) a hundred and three answers were in the affirmative and two in the negative. In a very great number of cases the answerers state that they considered that their " appearance " would be improved by the train- ing, and that therefore their chances of getting on in civil life would be increased, " as in these days a great deal depends upon appearance." In other words, the smart, alert-looking ,man has a better chance of a situation. than a " sloucher.

The whole Company say "Yes " to I. (b). And here we should like to point out again, for we hold it a fact to bp proud of, that all the men answer quite simply, and those who say more than " Yes " as a rule only add " decidedly " or " certainly." No.one, that is, has thought it necessary to " buck " or " show off " in regard to his patriotic sentiments. We are convinced, indeed, from the perusal of these answers that the men feel exactly like the boys in " Stalky and Co." when the terribly patriotic lecturer would wave the Union Jack in their faces.—They called him, it may be remembered, " the original Gadarene swine."..—Only one man amplifies his• answer, and this in so typically English a way that we must quote it:—

"Did you feel you would be a better man all round if you knew how to shoot and how to defend your country if needful ? "

"Yes, but not under compulsory service."

It is when we come to questions I. (c) and (d), which can best be treated together, that we get upon the most interesting ground of all. Ninety-eight men tell us that they had never thought'of joining the Militia, though the fact of their having joined the Spectator Experimental Company shows that their hearts were set upon doing some soldiering in the course of their lives. Seven state that they had thought of joining the Militia. A good number declare that they did not join the Militia because they objected to the company. Many of these, indeed, seem to consider it strange that such a suggestion should ever have been put to them. Two point out in specific terms that to have joined the Militia would have meant loss of situation. One or two answers to question I. (d)— i.e.," Why did you not join the Militia ? "—may be given as typical:—" Because a man who has served in the Militia is looked on as a loafer and no good for civilian work."

"I do not like the class of man I should be compelled to associate with." " Because of their bad reputation."

" I have more respect for myself and parents " " Father would not allow me." " Because of the conditions under which it is conducted." " Too many roughs in it." "Owing to the fact that employers do not think that they are fit employees." " Would either like to be a soldier or civilian, not a makeshift or an apology for one." " Certainly not." " Because I was always in constant work." " No, because it is.too rough, and men who serve in it can't get on in civil life."

Though these answers apparently show how much the Militia has fallen in popular estimation, we do not, as keen friends and resolute upholders of the Militia Force, feel unduly depressed by them. We believe that if the constitution of the force were altered to a six months' training, with subsequent service on Volunteer conditions, the Militia would at once be entirely rehabilitated in public opinion. Our view in this matter is enforced by the fact that the whole hundred and five members of the Company give " Yes " as their answer-to question IV. And it is to be noted that this " Yes " is not of a perfunctory description, but is in a large number of cases something more than a mere " Yes," and contains some expression which shows that the men's mind had bitten on the subject. " I most certainly think so," is a typical answer. " I am very much in favour of the thing, and I think it would be a very popular idea," is another ; while "Yes, certainly," and "Yes, decidedly," are freely scattered about the forms. It is interesting to find that the answer to I. (e) is very satisfactory. Seventy-six men say " Yes," fifteen are undecided, and only fourteen say " No." The answer to I. (f) from ninety-eight men is "Yes," four are undecided, and only three say "Nu."

The result of the question concerning the men's occupa- tions is so interesting that we give it in full. It certainly bears out our contention that the Spectator Experimental Company is a true sample drawn from the store of young English working men :—

" RETURN OF TRADES OR OCCUPATIONS BEFORE JOINING THE - COMPANY.

' 1 Auxiliary Postman 2 Barmen 4 Butchers 4 Bricklayers

1 Billiard Marker

1 Boots 1 Brother of a Training Colony [sic] 1 Brass Finisher 12 Clerks

4 Club Walters

1 Checker 1 Copyholder [F Print- ing Trade] - 1 Tram Conductor 2 Carmen 1 Cyclist G.P.O. 1 Cook 1 Carpenter 1 Dentist's Assistant 2 Drapers

4 Electrical Engineers'

Assistants 2 Engine Cleaners 1 Farm Hand 3 Footmen 1 Farm Pupil 2 Fishmongers 1 Fruit - and Flower Grower 1 Factory Hand 2 Gardeners

4 Grocers' Assistants

2 Insurance Agents 1G Labourers 1 Lig uidisator 1 Motor-Cycle Racer 1 Machinist to Engineer 2 Milkmen 4 Porters 2 Plumbers' Assistants 1 Picture-Frsme Maker 1 Publisher's keeper 2 Storekeepers 2 Stable Duds 1. Stevedore 1 Sailor 1 Surveyor 1 Shop Assistant 1 Sawyer 1 Tailor 1 Turner 1 Warehouseman 1 Weight-Ufter 1 Wheelwright 3 No Trade or Calling."

The answers to question III. are interesting. Thirty- three men mean to go back to their trades, forty-seven are undecided, ten mean to join the Police, eleven mean to join the Army, two are going to sea, and two are going abroad.

It is unfortunately impossible to set forth within the limits of our space more of the answers in detail, but we must try to convey to our readers the general impression produced by them. That general impression is that, could it be managed, a system of six months' universal training for young Englishmen between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, so far from being unpopular, would be exceedingly popular, and would be regarded by the bulk of the persons who would undergo that training as dis- tinctly beneficial to themselves. When we say universal training, it must, of course, be clearly understood that we do not mean to suggest that compulsory service would be popular. That is a perfectly different matter. Nor, again, do we suppose that it would be easy to make what we have called universal training compulsory. What we mean is this. Suppose the State were to decide that every young man who so desired should have an opportunity of going through a six months' military course on the lines of the Spectator Experimental Company, an enormous number of young men would, we believe, elect to go through that training, although they intended afterwards to seek positions in civil life, and had no intention whatever of becoming soldiers. Whether it would be possible for the State to establish such a system of voluntary universal training we do not for the moment propose to discuss ; but we hold, in view of our Experiment at Hounslow, that it would have an excellent effect, physically, morally, and mentally, on our young men, and that it would do an immense deal to improve the physique of the nation and to stop degene- ration. We could not, of course, in raising the Spectator Company, afford to take lads who were not in good health, and therefore the physical benefit is not so intensely marked with us as it might have been. If we had taken a hundred puny and ill-set-up lads, we do not doubt that by this time the visible effect on their physique would have been most marked. The Spectator men have improved immensely, and are in splendid condition at the present moment, but then it must be admitted that they were all physically sound when they started.

To sum up. we hold that the Spectator Experiment proves that young Englishmen between eighteen and twenty do not dislike military training per se, but like it ; and that the difficulty of recruiting a force like the Militia comes, not frOm any dislike of soldiering, but from the sense of self-preservation in the men. They may like soldiering, but they are not going to indulge their liking for it in such a way as to ruin them in their civil careers. In insisting upon the intrinsic popularity of military training among young men, it may be pointed out that the work done by the Spectator Company, though inter- esting work, has also been exceedingly hard work, mentally and physically,—far harder than that which either the Militia or Line recruits have' to undergo. Men who wanted " a soft thing "—we are glad to say there were only one or two of them—left the Spectator Company in the first week of its formation.