DEVOLUTION AND EFFICIENCY.
WE shall perhaps be told by the authorities at the War Office that it is all very well for us to talk about rapidly taking in masses of men, but that we have forgotten the great physical difficulties of dealing with a rush of recruits. Suppose men were to come in at the rate of a hundred thousand a week—and that certainly is not a bit too quick a rate—how are they to be housed, and how are all the arrangements for clothing and feeding them to be improvised ? Too great a rush might upset the whole machine, and lead to difficulties and disappoint- ments which would thoroughly disgust volunteers. We can assure the military authorities that we fully recognize these inconveniences, but they can and must be got over if we are to do—and that is the task before us—what Carnot did when in a month or two he raised his half a million men and more for the French Republic. The only way to do it, as with every piece of organization of this kind, is to devolve the work, and to set up a great many centres of action. If that is done the task is easy. Happily, the Government have the machinery for a scheme of devolution at hand in the hundred-odd Territorial Associations created by Lord Haldane's scheme.
Let us be explicit. The population of England, Scotland, and Wales is roughly a little over forty millions. We leave out Ireland for the moment, not that her men are not wanted, but because they must be dealt with on a special system. If you ask for four hundred thousand men from a population of forty millions, it means that every town, district, and village must give a number of men equal to one per cent. of its total population. Therefore the authorities can know the exact figure that they ought to expect from each Territorial Association. A county with a hundred. thousand men must be asked to give a thousand men. As a matter of fact, the War Office should ask for a number equal to at least one and a quarter per cent, of the population of each county, in order to avoid all possibility of falling below their standard. But it will be said : What is the use of doing this if there are no barracks into which to put the men ? Here is our answer. Let the County Associations enlist the men and have them medically examined and tested, and in cases where there is no barrack accommodation immedi- ately available, let them go back to their homes and their work. [We assume that the Government will make it a penal offence for any- employer to dismiss a man and deprive him of his employment merely because he has enlisted, and before he has actually been called out.] The men thus enlisted, but not called out, should at once begin to receive Army pay—that is, is. 3d. a day. It is only fair that the Government should pay them when it is for the Government's convenience, and not their own, that they are not at once put in training. The fact that the men will also still be getting their wages, very possibly for a fortnight or three weeks more, will act as a stimulus to recruiting, and not the reverse. The men will feel that they have been treated fairly, and a large number will greatly value a fortnight or three weeks during which they can turn round and settle their affairs. In the case of men who are out of employment the Government should add to the is. 3d. a day what it would cost them to clothe, house, and feed the recruit, and this, till the clothing arrives, should be at least another 12s. a week. Naturally enough, however, the men out of work would be the first to be drafted into barracks.
When there is so little time to lose, the preliminary training should begin at once amongst the enlisted men—in their spare time. In towns there would be no difficulty in getting halls or schools for this even- ing work ; nor, we are convinced, would the county authorities have any difficulty in putting their hands upon old soldiers—officers and ex-non-commissioned officers —who would be delighted, either gratis or for small fees, to undertake the work of breaking in the raw recruit and teaching him his preliminary drill. Again, the Rifle Clubs will—we say it with confidence—be happy to lend their ranges and appoint men to teach the elements of rifle shooting. In this way a recruit enlisted but not called up might get through a good deal of groundwork, and when taken to barracks have a good understanding of what was expected of him. That with a learner is always half the battle. In remote villages, no doubt, it would only be possible to get together small squads of seven or eight men, but in the towns and more populous districts com- panies could easily be formed. When they were formed they should be told to parade as often as can be arranged with units of the National Reserve. The National Reserve are burning to do something active, and they most certainly ought to be employed in assisting the training of Lord Kitchener's Second Army.
We would by no means confine the Territorial Associa- tions to securing the men. We would also entrust them with the work of obtaining uniform and equipment. They should be told, in our opinion, to procure the uniforms locally, and this interpreted should mean that not only big con- tractors in the great provincial towns should be set to work, but that the making of the uniforms should be parcelled out (with excellent results in the matter of relief) to every village tailor in the land. The same may be said of boots and bootmakers. The making of the field service tunic, trousers, puttees, and boots is perfectly easy, though we admit that the hats must be made in the factories. The actual stitching of the uniforms should, wherever possible, be given out to the wives, mothers, and women relatives of the men. Another way would be to tell the waiting recruits that, if they would provide their own uniforms, they would be bought from them at, say, twenty-five shillings per uniform. If Indian troopers can be trusted to procure their own uniforms, why not Englishmen ? If all the little tailoring establishments were thus set to work, the uniform problem would soon be got over. Here we shall be told that khaki woollen cloth is for the present unobtain- able. In that case the county authorities must be given a wide discretion to get the nearest "match" they can in other forms of cloth. No doubt an absolute similarity would not be maintained, but that does not matter. We are not going to be beaten by petty material obstacles of this kind. When they are met they must be overcome by ingenuity and enterprise. There is plenty of cloth of various kinds in the country which would make serviceable uniforms till the output of the woollen mills engaged in making khaki had caught up with and passed the supply of men.
Again, let the County Associations look out for good camping grounds, and make arrangements with local men for building iron and wooden huts. Every Association has got one or more depots within its area. Wherever possible the camping ground should be arranged near the depots, for there is sure, in that case, to be a good water- supply and a good train service. Where this is not possible, the parks of country houses should be used, for a big house always means a water-supply. In most cases, however, it would not be advisable to build too many huts for the men to sleep in. Let them, wherever possible, be billeted in the surrounding towns and villages and go to their training work as men go to a factory. Such "day-boy" training would not in the least interfere with discipline, and would have a marked effect upon the contentment and good conduct of the men.
If a process of devolution such as we have sketched is carried out, we are confident that the country will be sur- prised at the ease with which the men can be raised, clothed, and equipped. The essential thing to remember is that what seem great obstacles can easily be overcome if they are only attacked from more than a hundred different points. Remember, also, that attacking from these numerous centres will in itself have a good effect upon the nation, and bring home to every one the need of the hour. It will create an atmosphere favourable to recruiting, and that is what must now be created. That we can get the half- million if we go the right way about it we do not doubt for a moment. There is no sort of need for making a poor mouth about the business, or for concealing the fact that it is an honour to serve the country, and that the nation is not going down upon its knees in a panic to the young men to ask them to save it. Instead, it is going sternly to point out to them a duty which they must fulfil. That should be our attitude, but it must be an attitude adopted in a businesslike way and not spoilt by unbusiness- like methods.
Before we finish we have a word to say on a practical point. Let the Government work out the quotas on our principle that one and a quarter per cent. of the population will be required from every county, city, and big town, and then let the figures of recruiting as they come in be published from day to day. In this way a healthy rivalry will grow up between, say, Liverpool and Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Lancashire and Yorkshire, or Surrey and Kent, and the various boroughs within the Metropolitan area. If people in every village and district understand that they must not dream of resting till they have got, not merely their quota, but a substantial margin over it, we shall soon get to grips with the problem. Attack in detail must be our mot d'ordre.
Previous page
