NATIONAL SERVICE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1616, 6 December 1912, Page 4

NATIONAL SERVICE.

As the creator of the British Territorial Army of Defence, Lord Hai.dane has, very naturally, though not very successfully, crossed swords with Lord Roberts on the question of national military service. Curiously enough, the principle . upon which tho «6homo o! uttlvoreal milltaxi tra&lag in Now Zsal&ad and

in Australia iB founded, and which Was the. strongest argument in Ub favour, does not appear to have been stressed to any extent, by the .advocates of national service in Groat Britain, namely, that it is the duty of every citizen, as a citizen, to equip himself by a course of training, for service in' a national military emergency. In Great Britain the military forces consist of_ a regular army and tho Territorial Army, and it is the function of the latter—according to the theory of its establishment—to "hold the fort," so to speak, while the regular army is engaging the enemy elsewhere. The British Territorial Army 1b a voluntary force id respect to ite enlistment, but its member's aro bound by a moire rigid authority with regard.to their obligations as to training than were tho. members of the old volunteer army which the Territorial Army replaced.. Nevertheless, an army established by voluntary enlistment is entirely dependent _ upon public enthusiasm for the maintaining of its personnel— a condition of existence which is as unsatisfactory as it is precarious, from every military point of view.. Lord Roberts recently. declared that the British Territorial Army was a make-believe army, untrained, under-officered, and ilhder-mahnedj which is perfectly true, as statistics Bhow. It is a Simple matter to set .down on pajoer. as Lord Haloane did, the numerical strength df an army in prospective, and quite another, as tho same statesman has since discovered, to recruit ujj to that In a scheme of national training, based upon the obligations of citizenship, the. active strength of the army is at all times a .known quantity, while the freserve strength'is ah. annually increasing quantity. It is the known factor which determines military strategy, but no. question of strategy can bo discussed with any defihiteness where'one of the determining factors is more or- less problematical. Hence the.anxiety of the Empire's greatest strategist sittce..Wellington —Field Marshal Lord Roberts.