TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE WAR OFFICE PROPOSALS. THAT the Government's proposals in regard to the Army will go a long way to improve our military forces, we readily admit. They are a. distinct advance on anything which was deemed possible last year by even the most sanguine Army reformer. The men are to have their shilling a day, and we are to have twenty-five thousand more of them. We are also to have a good many more guns, and there is to be a considerable amount of decentralisation, if not any actual reorganisation, at the War Office. We are grateful, then, to the Government for what they have proposed, and we most gladly recognise a ring of sincerity and true endeavour about Mr. Brodrick's speech, which was sound in tone and temper, though it failed to show sufficient width of view, or that grasp of essential ideas which concerns the successful handling of a great subject far more than mere mastery of detail. At the same time, we cannot help deploring the fact that several opportunities have been missed or half missed, and that in one or two instances the reforms have been shorn of their full vigour by a touch of narrow-mindedness and official timidity. The Government have come very near doing a big thing, and, have indeed produced the plant and material for a big thing. At the last moment, however, the devisers of their plan seem to have shrunk back, and concluded that they would not risk the making of a real success. One thinks of a timid engineer employed to repair a bridge. He could with the materials at his command make a better and infinitely stronger bridge, but he recoils from the idea in horror, and is at great pains to do nothing which goes beyond sound and trustworthy patchwork. He feels safe while he is patching. The notion of launching out into anything big seems hardly respectable. That is the spirit in which the War Office appears to have approached the new Army proposals. It is excellent patchwork, and carried out on a very considerable scale, but it is never- theless nothing but patchwork.
In our view, the chief blot on the War Office proposals, judged from their own standpoint, is their inadequacy in regard to the artillery. Here is a signal example of patching versus the seizing hold of a large principle and carrying it out boldly and wisely. But before we point this out in greater detail, let us note that our criticism is not affected one way or the other by the question of quick-firing guns. It may be that we ought to take, like the Germans and the French, to quick- firing guns ; but whether we do or do not, the problem of numbers remains the same. We want the best gun, of course, but given the best gun, the question of numbers remains constant. Now let us consider what should be the principle on which the strength of our artillery force should be regulated. Artillery is in the main a question of money. Money will not give you men as the conscrip- tion gives them to you, but a rich country can have as many guns as it likes, for metal and wood and horses can always be bought, and voluntary enlistment will always secure enough men for gunners. That being so, England can and should have the strongest and most numerous artillery in the world. But there is another reason why we want a specially large artillery force. In case of in- vasion we might have to depend for our safety upon Militia, Volunteers, and Yeomanry, who, though excellent troops in their way, are only partially trained. But it is a military commonplace that such partially trained troops gain enormously in power and efficiency if they are stiffened and supported by specially large and powerful contingents of artillery. The Swiss and the Boers realise this, and therefore give an almost exaggerated importance to their artillery. Clearly, then, if we set out to increase the artillery, what we ought to do is not merely to supply (1) a very full proportion of guns to our regulars, and (2) a large reserve of guns to meet war casualties, but (3) a very large force of artillery to stiffen and support our auxiliary forces if they ever have to take the field for the defence of these islands. This seems obvious. Yet, as far as we can make out, the Govern- ment seem to have refused to face this clear conclu- sion!. They propose merely to supply a fairly full pro- Aportion of guns to their three army corm—that formula so dear to the official mind. They do not, unless we have entirely misread their statement, intend to supply a large- reserve of guns, and they make no sort of provision for supplying a large force of artillery to act with the Militia and Volunteers whenever they shall be called out. In fact, their proposals as regards the artillery seem based on no coherent principle. We are at present. terribly short of guns, so the War Office proposes to- give us a good many more ; but that good many more is not calculated on any reasoned or definite plan. Jones. finds his house is very much under-insured ; he there- fore adds a couple of thousand pounds to it offhand instead of thinking out what his house is really worth, and then bringing up his insurance to that figure. In other words, he lets his former deficiency, not his real needs, be the measure of the increase. But even doubling your insurance is not enough, is not even decently prudent, if before your house was only insured at a fourth of its proper value. We wish, then, the House of Commons could, or would, do in this case what a municipality does when a committee brings up an inadequate proposal,— send the artillery scheme back for reconsideration.
There is another matter which we should like to see sent back to be reconsidered, and that is the proposals of the War Office in regard to a system of three-years' service. Those proposals will never succeed in their present form. We are all for getting a number of three-year men into the Army, but the only practical plan is to get them by offering service in three-year-service home regiments like the Guards. There we have tried a three-year system,. and with excellent results. Surely, then, if we are going to extend the three-year system, it should be along these well-tried lines. Why, for example, should we not raise another regiment of Guards with three battalions ? We have English Guards and Scots Guards, and we ought to- have Irish Guards. Let us select one of the most famous of the many war-famed Irish regiments, and give them the extra title and rank of Royal Irish Guards, adding a battalion, and making the terms and conditions of service the same as in the rest of the Foot Guards. That there would be no difficulty in getting plenty of recruits we feel certain. Let it be known that vacancies in the Irish Constabulary would only be filled up by men who had been in the Irish Guards, and the new Guards regiment would be instantly full of young Irishmen of 6 ft. 2 in. qualifying for the coveted posts in the Constabulary; This would at once give us a thousand more places a year for three-year men. If more were wanted, a special and permanent home battalion might be added to the three or four first regiments on the Army List. Another point deserves mention. We greatly regret to perceive that the Government do not make any pro- vision, as Lord Lansdowne seemed to hint they would, for engaging boys at boys' wages, or rather for their keep, to be turned, by three years' training, into efficient soldiers. If the Government would take every year ten thousand boys of fifteen or sixteen—the age when they leave school and have not yet fixed on a trade—and were to offer to- drill them and to teach them to shoot for two or three years, sending them after that into the Cavalry, the Engineers, the Artillery, or the Line, they would, we believe, get a most valuable body of soldiers. The cost need not be very great, for during the training years the boys need only be well fed, well clothed, and properly housed, with, say, a couple of shillings a week pocket-money. If military training-schools of this kind were set up in say, ten centres distributed throughout England, Scot- land, Wales, and Ireland, they would, we believe, prove a. great success. The last point we have to make is one rather of advice than regret. We sincerely trust that the War Office authorities when they announce the new terms of service at the recruiting stations will do so in a fairly clear and attractive way. They ought to take care to bring home to the public mind the fact of "a shilling a day, and all found and a bond-fide free kit." If they merely announce that they mean to give an extra threepence per day, and also to stop the twopencewhich now goes to the de- ferred pay, they will neverget the man in the street to realise. that the soldier is henceforth really to touch a clear shilling. In our opinion, the War Office will be wise to advertise the new conditions very widely, and not merely in the post-offices, but in the columns of, all the smaller country newspapers. Advertisement of this kind need not be costly, and it will have a real effect in getting the facts. before the people in the remoter districts. We believe that this is already done occasionally on a small scale. The present opportunity should be seized for doing it on a big scale. We can only end as we began. The new Army proposals are not conceived in a wide or a far-seeing spirit, but as far as they go they are honest and sincere. If they are loyally carried out they will not do all that ought to be done, but they will certainly increase the efficiency of the Army.
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