WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO.
WE have dealt elsewhere with the extraordinary attitude adopted by the Government in regard to the present situation, and with their failure to state what they are doing or intend to do in the way of preparing for future troubles. But if the Government seem struck with paralysis, there is no reason why the man in the street should remain inactive. They have themselves appealed to that much misjudged Caesar, and must not now complain if he takes them at their word. In our own belief, what the man in the street wants is to be led. If he is only given a real lead, and a straight lead, there is nothing he will not do in the way of devotion to the national needs. But though he does not want to lead, but to follow, if his natural leaders stand bewildered and without initiative, his only course is to try to strike out a line for himself. It is not, therefore, because we think we know better than other people what ought to be done, but because we see nothing being done, and in the hope that if we call even for the wrong thing it may goad the Government into doing the right thing, that we intend to set forth a scheme of military action which would be adequate and worthy of the nation. We will only speak very generally as to the Navy. We hold that at once every effort should be made to increase its strength and efficiency in ships, guns, and men, and that not merely ought things to be done which can bear fruit next week, but that things which will take six months to finish can most appropriately be begun. But we still cannot believe that it is really necessary for a newspaper to insist upon this. Ministers must know what is the judgment which the nation would pass on them six months hence if then it should be possible for any one to say : `If only the Admiralty had begun to prepare six months ago all would now be well.' We shall require very strong evidence indeed to make us believe that Mr. Goschen is running any risk of it ever being possible for people to use such language in regard to the Department for which be is responsible. He knows that though the nation will forgive a great deal in regard to the Army, in the case of the Navy it will never forgive if once it can be shown that men have sinned against the light.
Patting the Navy aside on the ground that drifting in that Department is quite incredible, we must ask what the Government should do in the case of the Army. We can only say shortly,—Do what in various ways we have been asking for during the last six weeks. Prepare a new Army in case it may be wanted in South Africa or else- where, and organise the auxiliary forces and the trained men in the country into an efficient Army for home defence. We shall-be asked what exactly we would do it we were the Government, and determined to carry these principles into action. What we would do if we were the Government is this. We would issue an appeal to her people in the Queen's name, asking them through- out the Empire to give her two hundred and fifty thousand men to carry on the war, the men to be enlisted till the war was over. We would, that is, do exactly what the Americans do when in a military difficulty,— appeal to the country for volunteers, i.e., volunteers in the American sense, men regularly paid and enlisted, but only joining the Army for a short period. Of these two hundred and fifty thousand we would enlist, say, thirty thousand in the Colonies, and the rest in the United Kingdom. The Queen might ask twelve thousand men from Australia and twelve thousand from Canada, three thousand or so from .New Zealand, and two thousand from Malta and our Mediterranean possessions, and one thousand from the white population of British Guiana and the West Indies. These troops, though raised in the Colonies, should, of course, be entirely paid for by the Imperial Government--the Colonies have made enough sacrifices already—but they should be officered by Colonial officers, and the Colonial Govern- ments should be asked to undertake the work of raising and equipping the force, which in the case of .Canada and Australia and New Zealand should be mounted. The terms should be for the war, but the payments should be in accordance with local requirements. These men should be, of course, embodied as soon as enlisted, and trained in camps of exercise till it was decided to what destination they should be sent. In Australia, no doubt each Colony would raise a couple or more of these Imperial regiments, and in Canada each province, including Newfoundland. That these Colonial troops would be of the greatest possible service no one need doubt in view not only of the splendid material, but of the work already done by Colonials in the field. At home the two hundred and twenty thousand Volunteers asked for should be raised partly for home service and partly for service abroad, according to the wishes of the men. To begin with, the men should be engaged for home service, but after recruitment special inducements should be offered to men to register them- selves as eligible for service abroad during their term of service, which should be for one year certain or the war. As to the conditions of pay we do not propose at the present moment to make specific suggestions, but they should certainly be liberal, and include a good pension in all cases of disablement and a, pension to widows and orphans. Again, either a lump sum of money should be paid to a, man on discharge, or else he should be promised a reason- able sum a week for, say, two months after discharge and while the ex-soldier was finding employment as a civilian. These are the kin of inducements which should be offered to the ordinary men not hitherto trained as soldiers, but any man who had served in the Army but had finished his time with the Reserves, or had been in the Militia or Yeomanry three years, or had been five years in the Volunteers, but was not now in any of these three forces, should, as a trained soldier, be offered extra pay and given a good bounty on enlisting. After the first six months the man who enlisted as untrained should have his pay increased to that of the trained man. But though, as we have said, we would make the conditions of service generous and attractive, we would not in any sense rely upon these attractions for obtaining the men. It should be clearly understood that men were appealed to on the ground of patriotism. They would not be bribed to fight or merely hired to fight, but asked to help the Mother- land with their lives. The good pay and good conditions --and they must really be generous—would not be given as inducements, but as marks of gratitude on the part of the nation. We shall be told, no doubt, that it would be impossible to find barrack-room for all these men. Possibly, but in that case we would dispense with barracks during the first part of the training, and later we would put the men under canvas. Men recruited in towns should, as far as possible, be allowed to remain at their own homes. They would merely be required to turn up on parade in the morning, and to stay at work training all day at the butts and at drill just as they would at a business, or just as policemen do throughout the country. In this way the men could be got into condition gradually, and would not be subjected to all the discomforts of im- provised barracks. The notion that the men would mis- behave because they were not in the strict atmosphere of barracks is absurd. The country men would, no doubt, have to be brought into towns and billeted, and this to a certain extent might cause minor difficulties in the matter of discipline; but we do not doubt that they could be easily overcome if the officers would be content with the essentials of strict obedience and good shooting, and not worry too much about pipeclay points. Of course, the officers would be a difficulty to begin with. Many of them must be trained like the men, but by taking some likely young men and some retired officers, and by judiciously raising men from the ranks who had distinguished themselves, a body of officers could be raised who would soon bring themselves and their men into shape. A great many things would be done otherwise than they are done in an ordinary regiment, and very likely worse done, but if the men could be taught to shoot and to obey orders with intelligence they would be quite as efficient fighters as need be. What number of these men should be mounted infantry or cavalry, what infantry and what artillery or sappers, is a matter for experts, but one can hardly doubt that a large number should be mounted infantry. We shall be told, of course, that all we have written is nonsense, that the men could never be got, and that if they were got they would be useless. As to getting them we only say "Try." We believe they could be got in a week. Of course the recruiting must not be on the system adopted in the Imperial Yeomanry,—i.e., a man must not be obliged to force himself into the ranks and to overcome in the process a mass of doctors and representatives of the War Office, all bent, apparently, upon casting him as unfit. The doctor's test should only be one of a general kind, and not a life insurance test. Better that the doctor should let in a few weaklings than that thousands of men quite sound enough should be kept out. Again, age should be no bar. Any man between eighteen and fifty-eight who was not decrepit or senile should be eligible. Of course, men above fifty would be more severely canvassed and tested than men of thirty, but we must never forget that the effects of age differ greatly. There are plenty of men of forty-five, or even thirty-five, who are infinitely more "broken" than others of fifty or sixty. It is far better to look at the actual man than to examine his certificate of birth. Again, as to the methods of recruiting. We must—after the manner of the Americans—bring facilities to men's doors, and not expect them to hunt up the authorities. In London and every great town recruiting tents or huts must be opened in all the parks and in all the chief open spaces and thoroughfares, and there recruits must be able to present themselves and get sworn in with the minimum of trouble and delay. In the country districts there must be a centre in every market town, and also capable men must go into every village and explain the conditions of service and accept recruits. The other day the present writer heard of a willing recruit for the Imperial Yeomanry, living not more than fifteen miles from London, who, through lack of information and facilities for recruiting. could not, though willing, manage to overcome the physical diffi- culties placed in his path. If that is possible almost within the gas-lamp area what of the wilder districts of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland ? If once the appeal is made no effort must be spared to advertise the when, the how, and the where. As to the usefulness of the untrained men when they had done six months' training, and of the trained men to begin with, we can only say that if when once the rifle is mastered they are not as capable of defending their country as the Boers were when the war began, we had better abandon at once the task of holding the Empire.
In addition to raising and training this new Army with a view to possibilities, we would embody the whole of the Militia and Militia Reserve, and would organise the Volun- teers for active work by giving them transport of their own and other means of mobility. To this last we attach the greatest importance. The Volunteers are a splendid body, men and officers, but they are at present quite unable to take the field. Probably the War Office is much too busy now to give them this organisation. Very well, then, let them tell the commanding officers of each Volunteer battalion to obtain at once for their commands whatever is necessary. That would be a very reasonable and proper piece of decentralisation. The Colonels would of course get their transport waggons, horses, and harness and other material locally, but the War Office could prevent waste by naming a fixed sum per regiment which must not be exceeded. Finally, we would raise a foreign legion of twenty thousand men,—Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, and the West Indies would make capital recruit- ing agencies. We have always in the past employed a certain number of foreign troops, and we see no sort of reason why they should not be employed in the future. We would not of course send such a legion to South Africa, but it would be very useful elsewhere. What would be the use of making this effort ? The good would be this. We should take away from foreign nations the slightest temptation to try intervention, even if they imagined that the Fleet could be paralysed or decoyed away for a short time, and we should give our- selves the power to send another hundred thousand men to the Cape if, unhappily, another army should be required to finish the war. Very likely we shall be able to accomplish our end without such measures, but to do so will mean an unnecessary amount of risk and anxiety, and so of possible humiliation. If we do as we have suggested we shall deserve success in addition to obtain- ing it, for we shall have acted with wisdom and discretion.
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