COMPITLSORY NATIONAL SERVICE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The opponents of Compulsory National Service are always abusing somebody. The obvious reflection that this shows a weakness of argument does not console one for the regret that a national question should be handled in so poor a spirit by those who occupy high places. Firstly, there is a general abuse of our young men for• being unpatriotic "slackers." I do not believe a word of it. Our boys are just as good as ever ; but supposing the charge is true, surely a little compulsion is just what is wanted; if it is not true, there must be another cause to seek for the gaps in the Territorial ranks. Then the National Service League is the object of abuse, and Colonel Seely says that any member of the League who is not a Territorial must be a fool or a hypocrite. I cannot follow the argument, but I would remark that many, perhaps most, of the members of the League are roast the age for• service, and that if Colonel Seely considers that military service is so easy a matter that every man ought to be a Territorial, what becomes of the argument that compulsory training will cause all kinds of hardships, loss of -employment, loss of wages, &c., &c. P The real fact is that thousands of young men would join the Territorials if they were enabled to do so by a compulsory (so-called) system which would be fair to all. As to the charge that the National Service League has " crabbed" the Territorials, the truth is the exact opposite. I have attended many League meetings ; I have never heard one word spoken in depreciation of the Territorials, and so far is this the case that members have resigned from my own branch on the score " that the League has bolstered up a rotten system." Then the unoffending eolfer stirs the wrath of General Bethune. Now the bulk f golfers are middle-aged men, many of whom have done
their service in earlier days. Most golfers are public-school men, and I have reason to know that seventy-five per cent. of public-school boys serve in their O.T. Corps. There is one class which is almost entirely missing from Territorial ranks, that is the shopkeepers and shop assistants in country towns. They have not come under the lash, and rightly so, because their hours of work preclude military service, but when unmerited abuse is being scattered passim, why_does this class escape censure P—I am, Sir, &c.,
G. W. S. BURGESS,
Upland House, Epsom.
[Any one who has attempted to obtain recruits for the Territorial force, as the present writer has, will realize that our correspondent speaks the words of truth and soberness. Again and again the young man one desires to enlist cannot or will not join, not because he himself objects, but solely because his parents, or his employer, or both object. He is not free to do as he likes, and nothing but compulsion will set him free.—ED. Spectator.] Old Volunteer, National Reservist, Member of National Service League, Preparatory School Master, and keen, but bad, Golfer.
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