LET OUR YOUTH SEE THE EMPIRE
Silt,—The question of compulsory national service for youth is again under discussion, and most people will agree that something of the kind is necessary in the present state of world affairs. A great opportunity will be missed, however, if the period of six months or a year of conscripted service is devoted to a narrow military training within our own shores. Many of us who have served in the present war have felt that one of the best compensations for the time lost has been the fact that we have seen many different parts of the world. Some have been luckier than others in their places of travel. I have recently returned from service with the R.A.F. in Southern Rhodesia, which was one of the centres for the Empire Air Training Scheme.. I was greatly impressed by the fine climate, the sports facilities, the hospitality-of the Rhodesians— farmers and townsfolk with whom I spent leaves—and with the tre- mendous tracts of virgin country, which would be well-suited to military training. I was still more impressed by the impact . which first-hand experience of the British Empire had on myself and my fellows from the United Kingdom.
This impact varied, of course, with the individual. The feelings of some were stirred by the social conditions of the natives and the existence of a strict colour bar ; others glowed in response to the possibilities of commercial success which the colony holds out to the newcomer—the great scope in stock-raising, tobacco and all other kinds of crop-growing, besides mining and the establishment of light industries. Most of us were struck by the high standard of living which the white population enjoys, and by the unhurried satisfying lives which they lead, so. different from the cramped and—comparatively speaking—colourless existence to which so many occupants of this overcrowded island are condemned. All of us, in fact, had our eyes opened to the almost unlimited oppor- tunities which Southern Rhodesia and therefore other parts of our empty Empire .have to offer, and to the great waste in human happiness which this emptines. implies. We found ourselves struggling with feelings which we had hitherto regarded as outmoded and Victorian—a sense of pride in our joint possession of these lands and a sense of responsibility concerning their future. Hundreds of us decided to return.
If it is a good thing to arouse such sentiments in the breasts of young Britons, then our youth must be sent out to the lands of the Empire to see for themselves while they are stilt young and while their imagina- tion and enterprise are still fluid ; and what better time and opportunity could be chosen than that period between leaving school and before settling down to a fixed occupation? The British nation will be wilfully stupid, but it will also be criminally negligent, if it neglects this oppor-
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