LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE SOLDIER'S WIFE.
(To 1.89 FanTell OF TH. sssacrivos."-i Sra,—May I draw the attention of your readers to the extra- ordinary recommendations of the newly published Government Report on the "Inquiry Regarding the Conditions of Marriage off the Strength," conducted in a manner surely without pre- cedent where matters vitally affecting so considerable a class are concerned ; not by a representative Committee, which might have included persons enabled by first-hand experience to vouch for the truth of their conclusions—the roll of officers holding honorary commissions could have furnished not a few, even if, on grounds hard to imagine, it had been held, inadvisable to descend further in the scale of rank—but by a single individual, Mrs. Tennant P It is not too much to say that a satisfactory solution of this question, which is second in importance only to the imperatively needed guarantee of adequate civil employment on leaving the colours, would create an immediate and lasting improvement in recruiting, such as the superficial methods of advertisement recently adopted, as a last resource, have notoriously failed to achieve. Even in this period of mega- phone publicity, the adage of good wine still applies to the Services, if to no other department of public life, and the contented ex-soldier is the one recruiting agent of whom permanent results may be confidently awaited. The authori- ties clamour unceasingly, and with cause, for that better class of recruit whom they do so little of practical value to attract, and it is just the desired type of man who is most likely to be influenced by a comparison of his prospects of marrying in tolerable circumstances within and outside the Service.
And what is the alternative which he has to consider P Under the present system, fifty per tient, of the sergeants, and not more than four per cent, of all lower ranks, treated for this purpose as one, are eligible for vacancies on the married establishment of their regiment Given the fact that in the latter class preference is naturally given to corporals in, order of seniority, and after them to staff men, especially if members of the band, it is obvious that the ordinary private's chance of securing this parsimonious benefit, unless he intends, and is lucky enough to be permitted, to serve the full period of twenty-one years, is virtually negligible. In the writer's own regiment only three private soldiers of less than twelve years' service, all of whom are on the staff, and therefore in receipt of higher pay than the bulk of their comrades, are on the strength, which comprises a total of fifty-two. At the same time, if the private is prepared to accept and to wait for promotion, he must also be willing to face the risk, inevitably peculiar to his profession, of some day finding himself reduced in rank and pay without the option. available to every civilian of seeking other employment, while the demands on his pocket for the support of wife and family remain unchanged.
It is, therefore, in no way surprising that so many privates commit what Mrs. Tennant considers the fatal mistake of marrying off the strength, a step which means nothing less than that in the case of a plain duty man the wife must be in a position throughout the whole of this stage of their married life to provide everything except the rent of their lodgings. This, of course, if there are any children, means unalloyed drudgery for her, and usually resolves itself into either a. harassed competition for regimental washing-lists or sheer corrupting mendicancy. From this Mrs. Tennant decides that the only method of dealing with the difficulty is remorselessly to stamp out the possibility of any such marriages being con- tracted, by limiting the grant of sleeping-out passes to a narrowly restricted "Candidates' List," and by refusing to countenance in future the practice of carrying rations out of barracks, or of drawing instead an allowance of sixpence a day.
Governments are notoriously bad psychologists, and Mrs. Tennant appears in this cane to have yielded to the bias of her function. It requires, indeed, an abstract view of humanity to contemplate and seriously recommend as a practical remedy a form of tyranny so odious and so futile. Carefully weighed knowledge of the barrack-room emboldens the writer to declare categorically that the only consequence of any such imposi- tion would be, not the diminution by so much as ten per cent. of the present high rate of marriage off the strength, but a serious wastage at both ends in the form of an almost instant diminution in the number of recruits, accompanied by a pro- portionate increase in the number of deserters. It can hardly be contended that the present is a suitable moment for advo- cating measures calculated to produce either, let alone both, of these results.
The problem is urgent—so much the Government have acknowledged in commissioning the Report. It admits of only one solution, and it should be the business of all who have at heart the welfare of our troops to ensure that this and no other shall be the outcome of the inquiry. The subject, if disposed of by petty amendments or the institution of fresh disabilities, may have long to wait before it can be raised again with success. Nothing less can be accepted than an immediate and substantial increase in the accommodation available for married couples. It is simply a matter of bricks and mortar. The military reasons alleged, but not specified, by Mrs. Tennant against the realization of this reform, which the plainest equity requires, exist only on paper, if they can be said to exist at all. As for expense, it would be merely initial, and trifling at that. This elementary recognition of the legitimate human claims of men whom politicians are only too ready to exploit would do more than any conceivable enactment to reduce the number of hasty and improvident marriages in the Army, which is the professed object of the Report, by giving the well-behaved private soldier something worth waiting for, and a reasonable prospect of attaining it:—
Previous page
