ARRAYING THE NATION.
WE congratulate the National Government upon having taken the first and most essential step for arraying the nation, not merely for the fighting line, but, what is equally important, for the better provision of all munitions of war, from shells to bicycle tires. We have got to make a supreme effort not only in the field but in the factory. It is therefore of the utmost importance that we should. not be tumbling over each other in a panic scramble, but that every man and every woman in the country should be set to do the work which he or she is most capable of doing, and to doing it with the least possible amount of waste. " Here am I, send me—to do the thing which will make me most useful to the nation." That is the text upon which we all want to act. But before the Government can make sure that we are one and all doing the right thing in the right way they must get the necessary information. They must find out the answers to the two vital questions : What are you doing now ? and what could you do if it were decided that your present work is not necessary P " Therefore the Government are going to array the nation, as our ancestors called. it ; or, as we call it now, create a National Register in which every person from fifteen to sixty-five, man and woman, will state (1) Name and address, (2) Age.
(3) Condition—single, married, or widowed.
(4) Number of children (if any). (5) Trade or occupation (if any). (6) Name of employer (if any), and nature of business.
After this the registered person will have to say " whether he is skilled in and able and willing to perform any work other than the work (if any) at which he is at the time employed, and, if so, the nature thereof ; and such other particulars as may be proscribed." After the return of a form, the signatory shall be supplied. with " a certificate of registration, which shall be signed. and preserved by him." Members of his Majesty's naval and military forces are not required to register, Military service, we aro told, is one of the answers which may be given to the last question by men who are willing to enlist.
We cannot on the present 'Occasion go into the details of the way in which the enumeration is to be made. Suffice it to say that three days will be allowed. for filling up the forms, which will be left at the door of each householder's house and called for after the lapse of the period named. Every person, man and woman, who is over twenty-one will be personally responsible for filling up his or her paper. Minors—that is, persons from fifteen to twenty-one—will also get forms, but the father or other householder will be responsible for seeing that they fill them up. The enumerators will give help in filling up the forms. There will be a penalty of £5 for failure to answer the questions, and £1 will be added for each day's delay or for answering the questions wrongly. The Bill introduced by Mr. Long renders it the duty of the local authorities—the Borough Councils, Urban District Councils, and Rural District Councils are the areas concerned—to make the necessary arrangements for taking the National Register each in its own locality. They will nominate local staffs, such as school teachers and similar semi-official persons. Here we may make a practical suggestion. Why should. not the special constables be employed in taking round forms ? They are now recognized throughout the country as officials, and there would be no fear of any one pretending not to recognize their authority, or saying that they have no right to leave papers at the door, and so forth. We may add that for the purpose of the Register we do not see why a great many women should not be sworn as temporary special constables to assist the existing staff, and should not wear the special constable's brassard. No doubt not a very great number would be available, for it is a popular delusion to suppose that there are any large masses of women unemployed. In the great centres there are some, but the majority of women in the country are always busy at absolutely essential work—preparing the food of the nation, making its beds and cleaning its rooms, looking after the children and the sick, and generally keeping the household and the family in order. This work does not leave many odd hours for the majority of women. When the forms have been got in they will of course have to be tabulated and indexed, and this process, it is believed, will take some two months.
It is obvious that the National Register is only a piece of machinery. It is a means and not an end in itself. In our opinion, it will ultimately be used to provide that com- pulsion without which the nation will find it impossible to get through the war with a due respect to justice and efficiency. just as did the United States in the Civil War. The voluntary system has no doubt certain advantages, but under a great strain it becomes the refuge of the slacker— of the lazy man, the selfish man, and the cowardly man, It is a system which reserves all the blows for the willing horse, and allows the unwilling to trot along in cynical security. But though this is our view, and we should not be candid if we did. not set it forth, there is no reason per se why the advocate of the voluntary system should be against a National Register. Indeed, if he really believes that the voluntary method will get us all wo want, as he professes to do, and that it is really the most just and efficient plan, then the National Register will greatly help him to adjust the system, and to make sure that the men who are best adapted for fighting go into the firing line, and the men whose talent lies in making munitions remain at home. The National Register, as we said some months ago, will " make the voluntary system last out as long as possible," will, in effect, give it the best chance of seeing us through the war. For example, it is conceivable that the National Register will show that so large a number of men have already gone to the war, and so many are wanted at home, that the number available for military service is not large enough to justify recourse to com- pulsion. It may, in a word, show that we are already doing our best. Again, the effect of it may conceivably be so greatly to stimulate voluntary effort that it would. be unreasonable to alter our system, even though that system may from many points of view be an imperfect one. There is undoubtedly a good. deal of feeling amongst many men that they would rather go voluntarily than be compelled, and when they see the foundations laid upon which a system of compulsion can be based they will get just the push over the line which they require. Further, they have begun to realize, if they are wise, that if compulsion should come it will come in the nature of a tax. Those who are compelled cannot possibly expect, either for themselves or their dependants, the same pecuniary terms which are rightly given to volunteers. No IMO, of course, suggests that if we have recourse to compulsion our soldiers will not be thoroughly well clothed, housed, and equipped, or, again, that their dependants will be left to starve. What, how, ever, is certain is that if we have compulsion, the man thus taken will be in the position of the French soldier, who, though well fed, is not given the generous pocket-money of ls. 2d., or very often ls. Gd., a day, as is the British soldier.
We have now a suggestion to make for increasing the utility of the Register. As soon as it is established we would issue to all men who are engaged in what the Government deem to be essential home work—that is, the manufacture of munitions, railway work, Imperial and local administra- tion work, and so forth—notices stating that the men to whom they are given are not eligible for enlistment without obtaining the spe,cial leave of the authorities. Again, a similar paper should be given to all men who have already attempted to enlist and been rejected on medical grounds, or because they do not come up to the standard. The recipients of these notices, and also all men over forty years of age and under nineteen, should be ticked off on the Register as non-eligibles. The result of this would be to show us exactly how many men there are in each registered area—i.e., the borough or urban or rural district--who are in a position to join the colours. The next step would be for the military authorities to makean estimate as to bow many more men they require. Say they calculate that they want another million men, and say that it is found that when all deductions are made there are three million men of military age available—that is, who are not being used for other necessary purposes. In that case, a third of the eligible men in each area would be the quota for that area. If the quota could be obtained volun- tarily in, say, three months, then that area would be marked off as having done its duty and be free from further draft- ing. On the other hand, if at the end of the three months it were found that the particular district was short of its quota by, say, ten thousand or twenty thousand men, or -whatever it might be, then it would be necessary to hold a ballot in order to obtain that extra number of men. If this suggestion is thought out, it will be seen that it does, as we have said above, give every chance to the voluntary system. If the quotas are made up voluntarily, well and good. If they are not, then the men must draw lots to decide who is to go, it being understood, however, that the men thus taken by lot will not be given the generous terms now given to volunteers. Before we leave the subject of the Register we should like once more to point out that in this registering, array- ing, or mustering of the nation we are doing nothing new. We are only reverting to the system of our ancestors. People sometimes talk as if the groat arraying of the nation, say, for example, before the Armada, was merely a military system of impressment of men for the fighting line. That is a complete mistake. Tudor and Elizabethan Commissioners of Array when compiling their Registers made minute inquiries as to the men capable of producing munitions of war. In the later musters especially we find munition- makers fully represented under the headings of smiths, labourers and pioneers, wheelwrights and carpenters. Again, in a set of memoranda or instructions issued by one of the Commissions of Array, we find almost as much attention paid to the armour and furniture as to the men. The Commissions, we may note, were not without a very modern side to their work. For example, the Commission of Array in 1588, just before the Armada, show that a panicky Press, then as now, was a cause of trouble. They wore obliged to set up a kind of primitive Press Bureau. They laid it down "that a Provost Marshal be appointed for the punyshinge of Roges vacabondes and Spreders of Newes and to be assisted by the Justices of peace and their officers."
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