TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE UNGUARDED DOOR. NOTHING would be easier than to write a scathing yet unexaggerated leading article on the strange figure cut by the Government in the debate upon the condition of the Territorial Army in the House of Lords last Monday. One might point out that the Government speakers as usual appeared to be acting on the instruction : " No case : please abuse National Service." One might note further how, when driven into a corner, the Government had to admit that they are relying upon the National Reserve, a body to which, -until Colonel Seely came into office, they had given the very minimum of recognition, a body of which indeed it might almost be said that it was forced upon them by a group of civilians and old soldiers, a body which was at first in effect declared to be chiefly important as showing the patriotism of ex-Regulars and ex-Volunteers, but which was not likely to be of any active military use. Again, one might pick plenty of holes in the Territorial Force, and dwell upon the fundamental error upon which it is organized. But though there are so many opportunities open to us for "ragging " the Government, and though on other grounds there is nothing that we desire to do so much as to weaken a Ministry which has played the part in home politics played by the present administration, and though, finally, we think that in the abstract the present Government deserves no mercy from anybody, we are not going to use the condition of the Territorial Army as a stick to beat them with. Frankly, the position is too serious for that. It is not because we think ourselves "too great and good " to take a party advantage that we abstain, but solely because of the position of danger into which the country is drifting, and from which it can only be saved by care and vigilance. All we are going to do, all we dare to do, on the present occasion is to face the actual facts without imputing blame to anyone in regard to them, and to do what we can in the direction of suggesting a remedy.
The Territorial Force is greatly below the establishment which we were told, and we believe told truly, was necessary to ensure the safety of the country against a military raid which might easily take place owing to some temporary accident of the sea. At this moment the Territorial Army is some 50,000 men short of the pre- scribed number, and of the 263,000 men we have got on paper, nearly 100,000 must be knocked off (1) as recruits who have not yet learnt their drill or fired a shot, and (2) as men who, though they may have joined the force a year ago, and so are not technically recruits, have never yet been able to attend camp. This brings the effective force down to something like 170,000 men, and from them must also be knocked off a certain number of men who from ill- ness, youth, and other unpreventible causes could not be put into the firing line. Of the paper force now on the rolls of the Territorial Army we should indeed be lucky if we got 150,000 really effective soldiers ready to take the place and do the work of the Regular troops despatched in the expeditionary force. Now this means nothing more or less than that the nation's door would be left unguarded. We do not of course mean that this would necessarily expose us to immediate invasion. The door does not open on to the street, but on to a moat without bridges. No one can cross the moat who does not command it by the possession of sea-power, temporary or permanent. Still, considering how precious the things on the other side of the door are, no sane man can view without deep misgiving the fact that the door is unguarded, or, what is the same thing, inadequately guarded.
If these are the facts, what is the remedy ? In our opinion the only permanent remedy is that which the Swiss nation in their need discovered long ago. They were in imminent danger, and they, like us, had an intense dislike of militarism and of passing the whole nation through a two years' course in barracks. To meet their difficulties they devised a system of universal citizen service under which men receive enough training to make them into a useful militia for home defence, and yet not so much training as to interfere with their civil vocations. They made their Territorialism universal, and they placed upon every war-worthy citizen an obligation of recruit training in peace such as we intend to give our Territorials only after war has broken out. Now everyone admits that this is a fine thing to do, and that the Swiss people, the most democratic on the face of the earth, have not lost their liberty or their democratic spirit by doing it. But though everybody is willing to praise the Swiss, half the nation is represented as being wholly unwilling to follow their example. We are told that what suits Switzerland would not suit us, and that it is not only safe but very much better for us to rely on voluntary effort and upon the spirit of freedom, &c., &c., &c. Our answer is : " Look at the facts." The voluntary spirit is not sufficient. It has failed us. It has not produced, and will not produce, sufficient guards for the door. We admit that at first sight this seems a strange and a hard saying, for the spirit of patriotism and adventure never burned brighter in the country than it does to-day. We are told that the foundation of the Flying Corps has brought its officers recruits literally by the thousand. Again, even so remote and so special an adventure as that of the expedition to the South Pole brought some 8,000 volunteers ready and willing to risk all the dangers of the frozen seas of the Antarctic. That does not look like a weakening of the national fibre. And yet we cannot fill the Territorials.
Why is this ? We have ourselves no doubt whatever of the answer. You can get plenty of men to give up a civilian career and to throw themselves into one of adven- ture, for such an act, whether wise or not from the point of view of worldly prudence, at any rate does not fall between two stools. You can, in other words, get a man very easily to burn his boats and accept the chances of a definite naval or military adventure. What you cannot get him to do— and we cannot pretend to be surprised at it—is to continue his civilian life, but at the same time to take on obligations which imperil, or, at any rate, appear to him to imperil (the point is not what you think but what he thinks), his chances of doing well in civil life. Here is the crux. Men are not hostile to military training. They like it; but they are not going to handicap them- selves and give others a better chance over them by becoming Territorials. If they cannot go the whole way they are not going to risk failure in life for a taste. Make, however, everybody over seventeen become a Territorial and all your difficulties vanish at a touch, for then no one is better off or worse off than anybody else. There is no handicap. All start at scratch. Make Territorialism, however, not a general obligation but a hindrance to civil life, and the wonder is that you get any- body at all to enlist. Everybody admits that taxes must be raised for national defence. Yet no one would pay them if they were voluntary. It is indeed only because military training is per se so exceedingly attractive to young men that you get anybody to volunteer to pay this . particular form of tax when he could escape it by merely saying "No, thank you," when invited to contribute.
But though we are convinced that the only permanent and true remedy for the unguarded door is universal and compulsory service in the Territorials, preceded by a recruit training of from three to four months, we fully recognize that this remedy, though it might be voted this year, could not be applied instantly, and that whether the country does or does not adopt the permanent cure, there is need, and imperative need, for some immediate pallia- tive. We have got to recognize the fact that in order to cover the next two or three years—and remember they are years of special naval danger—we have got to think out some effective plan for buttressing up the Territorials. In other words the Government will have to rely upon impro- vising soldiers for the work of home defence should war come and the Regular Army have to leave the country in the expeditionary force. Now improvising troops during war and while the guns are firing is, of course, a radically bad system. To make the bad thing less bad it is essential that the scheme of improvisation should be as far as possible thought out in every detail beforehand, and that there should not be the double evil of improvising men and also of improvising the machinery for impro- vising them under fire. Let us at least have the machinery settled on in peace time, and also let us have the material got ready and stored as it can be before the war begins. This means that, knowing that we shall have to improvise in some form or other a quarter of a million men is
addition to the Territorials with the colours, we ought to take care that there are at least a quarter of a million absolutely ready and not merely "practically ready," rifles, uniforms, and other equipment, and at least a million extra pairs of boots stored and waiting for improvised patriots to put their feet into. Next, knowing the deficiency there must be in the Territorial cadres, as many men as possible must be earmarked to make good the deficiencies in those cadres, which, as we have pointed out, could not at the present moment be less than 160,000, and might be more.
Colonel Seely must receive the thanks of all men who care for the national welfare for having early recognized that the only people fit to be earmarked in this sense are the men of the National Reserve, because they are trained men. It is no good earmarking a man who has got to be trained when the need for his services has arisen. To be useful you must improvise your soldiers out of the trained men such as are provided in the reservoir of the National Reserve. Whether Colonel Seely has been able to induce the Treasury to grant enough money to the Associations to make the earmarking a success we shall not discuss at the present moment except to say that whatever may be our view as to the adequacy, what he is doing is a great deal bolter than nothing—which is what the Army Council has hitherto done in the matter of the National Reserve. To be specific, fine words and ls. a year per man is not nearly as good as fine words plus 6s. per man. Besides, when the Government has once begun, we may be pretty sure that the 6s. per man will not be the last transaction between them and the Territorial Associations over the National Reserve. And here we would give one word of warning We do most sincerely trust that the Government will not break the charm of the National Reserve by giving anything to the men themselves, unless they give a sum so obviously adequate as a retaining fee that there could be no possibility of grumbling about it. To offer an inadequate retaining fee would be the very worst thing in the world. You may do a great deal with Englishmen by making a naked appeal to their patriotism or again by paying them well, but you will never achieve anything by paying them inadequately. If you attempt this course there at once surges up the cry, " Hang it all, if I am worth anything I am worth more than this beggarly pittance ! "
While on this point we should like to make a practical suggestion. The Government is going to trust to the National Reserve to come to their aid to fill the cadres of the Territorial Force, pending that day of the blue rose when the Territorials are up to their full establish- ment and everybody on that establishment is an effective. In order to do this the Government are going to give a certain sum of money to the Territorial Associations for the purpose of organizing and maintaining the National Reserve. In these circumstances why should not the nation officially recognize the National Reserve and its members in the way which is, perhaps, the most honorific that could possibly be found. We should like to see recognition given to the National Reserve by the Prime Minister moving in the House of Commons a vote of thanks to the men who have registered themselves in the National Reserve in order to be at the disposal of the Government in case of imminent national peril. Such recognition would, we believe, be exceedingly good for the force, would attract men to the Reserve in still larger numbers, and would make the men feel that the country understood that they meant business, and were not going to vapour away their patriotism in private parades. We know well enough that in their hearts the men feel that they are " standing by to serve their country " if need be. Nevertheless they would like to feel sure that Parliament knew it, and thanked them publicly for their patriotism. There has been nothing pinchbeck in their action : let there be nothing pinchbeck in the recognition accorded them.
We must end as we began by pointing out that though some stop-gap measures are absolutely necessary, and that whatever happens we must in case of imminent national peril during the next three years rely upon improvised men, the old difficulties and the old dangers will always remain till we adopt the radical cure of universal military training and compulsory service in the Territorials. And here we have two remarks to make. We would allow, as the old Militia Acts allowed, any man of conscientious "Quaker" views to escape the obligation. That is, if any
young man of Territorial age went before a magistrate and swore or affirmed that it was contrary to his conscientious convictions to be trained to the use of arms for the defence of his country, we would allow him a certificate of exemption. Next, and this we regard as most important, we would add to the Act of Parliament imposing compulsory service a referendum clause under which a poll of the people should be taken before it came into operation. At that poll the voters could, if they liked, veto the Act. We do not believe they would veto it, but we want the maximum of sanction for the Act when it is passed, as it assuredly will be. We want no one to be able to say that it was adopted by the manoeuvres of a minority or by Parlia- mentary log-rolling. We want universal service to be recognized as the direct will of the inhabitants of this country. We are not only willing, if pressed to say that it should go to the country for assent or veto ; we are on the merits anxious that the Bill should be put to the country. Its acceptance would prevent all nonsensical talk about tyranny, and about the liberty of the subject— not to fight for the defence of his native land, his hearth and his home.
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