With all due deference to Lord Kitchener, we venture to
say that that is not the way to deal with the question of numbers. The country wants something far more specifie than this. It wants to have a clear ideal put before it— something which it can understand and work up to. No one can, of course, lay down to within a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand the number of men that will be needed, but what the country expects from Lord Kitchener is a numerical estimate, if a rough one. In our opinion, he should have told the British people that if they want a prolonged war they will send him men in driblets, but if they want a short war they will send them in large numbers. Then they can begin at once that process of training which at the very least must last four months. Men recruited now will not be ready till April at the very earliest—probably not till May.
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