A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THE fact that Mr. Isaacs is about to make a general statement on demobilisation will not save him from a fusillade of questions when the House of Commons reassembles on October 9th. The Ministry of Labour must be working heavy overtime in correspond- ence as it is, for M.P.s are being deluged with letters from con- stituents with demobilisation grievances, and the only thing to do with most of them is to send them on to Mr. Isaacs. Not that there is really much hope in that, for the Government has quite rightly decided that, having drawn up a general demobilisation plan, it cannot start making exceptions for individuals. None the less, there are certain classes of hard cases—not simply individual cases— which do deserve immediate attention. One hinges on the question how the period of service is to reckoned for demobilisation. There are men (I speak of cases I know) who, having volunteered for some form of active service and been found unfit, took a civilian job in a Service Department and at some date or other were asked to take a commission and put on uniform—purely for purposes of con- venience—white still doing precisely the same work ; now they find that their service is counted, for demobilisation, from the day they put on khaki or blue, the previous eighteen months or two years going for nothing. That seems manifestly unfair. So does the case of men who voluntarily transferred from the armies to the mines, at the time when that was being urged as a patriotic duty, and now find thit service at the coal-face counts for nothing towards
demobilisation. But it seems that this is being put right. * * *
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