The Pace of Demobilisation
The domination of the debate on demobilisation in the House of Commons on Monday by Mr. Churchill was overwhelming. The Minister of Labour was quite unequal to dealing with the Opposi- tion Leader's case, and, very surprisingly, neither the Prime Minister nor any Service Minister except Mr. John Strachey, the Under- Secretary for Air (who acquitted himself extremely well), saw fit to reply. Mr. Churchill went to the root of the matter by asking for information, which the Government did not furnish, on the figures of the proposed military, naval and air establishments of the future. In default of that he submitted estimates of his own, based on the extensive knowledge he possessed as Minister of Defence. In his view, the Navy's personnel should be reduced to r5o,000, the Army's to 1,000,000, and the Air Force to 400,000. These, of course, are approximate figures, and they are to be compared with the Government's intention to have 2,243,000 men in the Army, t: 1,819,000 in the Air Force, and 665,oco in the Navy at the end of December. What is involved is both a question of permanent num- bers and of speed in demobilisation. The Government propose to reduce the Army to -1,156,000 by the end of June. That is not much above Mr. Churchill's own figure, but he considers the reduc- tion should be effected by the end of March. Thus to the general demand for acceleration of demobilisation Mr. Churchill adds a weighty statement of conviction that considerable acceleration is practicable. On the difficult question whether men in a certain class (under the A scheme) should be kept needlessly with the colours in this country till men of a similar class can reach home from the East it can be argued either that any other arrangement would be ill-received by the men overseas, or that the greatest good of the greatest number—and in particular the needs of industry at home—should prevail. On the general issue the first desideratum is for the Government to state what its permanent needs are.
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