T HE Army, upon which such vital Imperial and national interests
depend, is drifting aimlessly hither and thither like a derelict ship. It is true that Mr. Arnold- 'Forster is at the helm with his eyes fixed on a distant • horizon, and, with brows knitted and lipa compressed, is vigorously twirling and twisting the wheel. None of his efforts, however, have any effect. His colleagues, almost as soon as he had taken up his position, discreetly discon- nected the wheel and the steering-gear for fear that he should run the vessel on the rocks. The result is that though Mr. Arnold-Forster makes so brave a show of keeping the ship on the course he has laid down, she is in reality drifting up and down in the tideway. It is also true that owing to this precaution on the part of his fellow Cabinet Ministers he is less likely to reach the sunken rocks which men of experience and common-sense realised at once lay directly in the course he had chosen ; but this does not alter the fact that the ship while she drifts is in great peril, and that nothing is being done to repair her machinery or to put her in proper fighting trim. A correspondent who has a right through his experience and his service to speak for the Volunteers shows us in another column what infinite harm Mr. Arnold-Forster is doing to the Volunteers by his ill-judged aspersions on that Service and by his ill- considered schemes for the future. On the same lines as our correspondent's letter is the correspondence between Sir Howard Vincent and Mr. Arnold-Forster which we publish to-day. In a powerfully written, but at the same time perfectly courteous letter, Sir Howard Vincent points out to the Secretary of State for War how ill-judged, how unfair, and how injurious were his recent criticisms of the Volunteers in the House of Commons. Mr. Arnold- Forster in his reply in effect repeats his former criticisms. The correspondence is one which will be widely read, and we trust will enlighten the public on the manner in which the Volunteers are being treated. It reflects no little credit on Sir Howard Vincent, for it is a much pleasanter thing for a man in his position in the House of Commons, and in his party, to keep quiet and not quarrel with a Secretary of State. The late Colonel of the Queen's Wesfminsters has, however, never spared himself when the interests, honour, or good name of the Volunteers have been at stake ; and the correspondence with Mr. Arnold- Forster is yet another cause for gratitude on the part of the Volunteer Force, and of all those who desire to see that Force retained in vigour and esteem. We trust that Volunteer officers who read the correspondence between Sir Howard Vincent and the Secretary of State for War, and the letter of our correspondent, and who have the requisite facts at their disposal, will supply " Volun- teer Field Officer " with the information he needs to rebut, in even greater detail, Mr. Arnold-Forster's allegation that the Volunteers do not and cannot act as a reservoir of men which can be drawn upon in a grave national emergency for oversee hostilities. In our view, this was the great service rendered by the Volunteers to the nation at the crisis of the Boer War, and it is essential that the country should be made to understand fully the nature and extent of that service before it decides on sending the Volunteers as we have known them in the past to that gigantic military scrap-heap to which Mr. Arnold-Forster has already destined the Militia. We believe it will be shown, not only that the Volunteers supplied us in various categories with forty thousand men whom they had trained in the essentials of war, but that if the Force had been fairly dealt with and properly handled we might have obtained from them a considerably larger number. If this can be shown, it is a fact of immense importance, and should lead us to think long before we reduce the numbers of the Volunteers, and so lower the level of the reservoir of partially trained men in the nation. The War Office argument runs in effect as follows The Volunteers, though we did our best to sterilise their patriotic enthusiasm, placed at our disposal some twenty thousand men directly, and were responsible for training in the elements of soldiership another twenty thousand of the extra men raised by us. Therefore we will greatly reduce the numbers of the Volunteers in case we have to appeal to them again.' We confess that, in our view at any rate, a, more reasonable argument would run :— ' The Volunteers at a national crisis supplied us with some forty thousand men • who had been trained by them. Therefore we will do everything to encourage the Volun- teer movement in case of future needs.'
While dealing with the present crisis in Volunteer affairs, we cannot refrain from calling special attention to the powerful and convincing article on the question of War Office administration as it affects the Volunteers to be found in this month's National. The writer, Colonel Leroy Lewis, shows bow deplorable an administrative error was committed in placing the Auxiliaries under the Adjutant-General's Department. Though we desire to draw very special attention to Sir Howard Vincent's correspondence with Mr. Arnold-Forster, and to the letter of our correspondent and the appeal he nuked, the main object of the present article is to note that the opinion of sensible civilians—and they are the men who in the last resort must decide the question—is visibly solidifying in certain definite directions in regard to the Army that we need. We will set forth shortly what we believe such men are beginning to feel on this subject. In the first place, we require a highly trained professional Army for policing the Empire, and this Army men are coming to see can best be obtained on a long- service system. We must offer the recruits better con- ditions of service. But the only condition of service which experience shows will really attract a sufficiently good class of men for our professional Army is a life career followed by a pension. We have long realised that what makes the police force so extraordinarily attractive is the fact that it gives a man security for twenty years of active employment, and then an adequate pension for the rest of his life. We must follow the example of the police if we are to have the best material in our professional Army. Accordingly we would raise our professional Army on terms of twenty-one years' service, ending with a pension as good as the pension now given to a policeman after twenty-one years' service. These are the conditions which have made the Royal Marines attractive in a very high degree, and would, we believe, make the Army as a profession equally attractive.
We are, of course, met at once with the objection,— How about the Reserve ? We would meet this objection, which we grant is a very important one, in the following way, After the professional long-service soldier had left the colours at the age of thirty-nine or forty and become a pensioner, he should, in our opinion, enter a. first-class Reserve till the age of fifty. This Reserve should be available for over- sea service. From fifty to sixty-five the pensioner should be in the second-class Reserve for home service. We admit that this would not give us a sufficiently large Reserve for oversee work in case of a great war. Accord- ingly we would raise another oversea Reserve on special conditions. Any man should be allowed to inscribe his name in this Reserve provided that he could show certain qualifi- cations as a trained man. A trained man would be any man who had served in the Militia and Militia Reserve, or in the Yeomanry and Yeomanry Reserve, for, say, seven years, who had been for seven years a Volunteer efficient, or who had been in the Guards and Guards' Reserve for seven years. This General Reserve would be divided into two categories. Up to fifty the man who joined it should be liable for oversee service, and from fifty to sixty-five for home service. After sixty-five he should receive an old-age pension till death. The terms of pay in this General Reserve might be ls. a day. To prevent the financial burden being too great, the General Reserve might be limited to a hundred thousand men in the first division,—i.e., men available for oversea service. Men called up from the General Reserve would be allotted . to any regiment or branch of the Service at the discretion of the military authorities.
Next, we would maintain the Guards as they are now, except that we would make each regiment a. four-battalion regiment, and would. fix the term of enlistment with the colours at only two years, and five years in the Guards' Reserve. The Guards would thus give us sixteen thousand men always with the colours, and by calling out the Reserve they could be raised to, say, forty thousand men. This would give us the strildng-force which every one is agreed must be provided, whatever military scheme is adopted. In addition, we should need to keep at least ten cavalry regiments belonging to the professional Army in the country, and also a proper proportion of professional field. and horse artillery. These, with the Guards, would. constitute the home professional garrison and the striking- force.
Next, we would have a greatly improved. Militia.. The Militia, in spite of the ill-treatment which it has always received from the military authorities, is still a living force, and if reasonably trained and properly developed we believe that a sound semi-civilian Home Army might be formed. from it. It must be better paid than now, and it must be called out and trained. under conditions which would make it fit in with the civil life of the nation. But if this were done, we see no reason why it might not be made as popular a force as the. Yeomanry. The recruit training should, as far as possible, not be given in barracks, but to men living in their own homes, as in former days. In numbers we do not see why it should not reach two hundred thousand men. The Yeomanry should remain as they are, and with the Militia—there must be Militia artillery, horse and field— would constitute an efficient Home Army. There should. be a Militia and a Yeomanry Reserve. Next, we would. have a Volunteer Force, which should practically be the present Volunteer Force which has served us so well, except that it should have a greater elasticity. We would not reject would-be Volunteers because they could not come into camp. WO should. like to see some Volunteer corps which would practically be uniformed rifle clubs, while others would maintain that high standard which belongs to such corps as the London Scottish or the Queen's Westminsters. The ruling principle would be that the State would take from each man such services as he could give, and would. endeavour to obtain the maximum of numbers. Only on two points should the Government be absolutely inflexible. A Volunteer must be a man who understands the use of the rifle and can march.
We have sketched roughly and in outline the Army that we need. We do not profess to believe that the picture is complete, or that the details which we have set forth might not be greatly, improved. What we do assert is that on such general lines the Army that we need could be produced, and at no greater cost than at present. Under our scheme the professional Army might be considerably reduced in numbers. In other words, our scheme could no doubt be greatly improved in detail, but we believe that it is sound in essentials. It will be noticed that we have not stated. whether the men of the pro- fessional Army are to serve their whole time abroad, or if not, what arrangements are to be made for. supplying the Indian drafts. We cannot enter here into this question in detail, but we do not see why a system like that which prevails in the Marines might not be arranged. Service in India, Egypt, and South Africa might be treated like sea service, and a man might be given one year of service at home to every four years of service abroad. Again, now that the voyage to India is so simple a matter, we do not see why a private should. not be given six months' leave at home every three years after the manner of Indian civilians. As we have said, these are details which we cannot enter into at present. We merely wish to point out that they are not insoluble, and that it would. be perfectly easy to work out a reason- able and practical system under which our oversea garri- sons could be supplied from a professional Army,—and a professional Army considerably reduced in numbers.
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