DIVIDED OPINION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 153, 2 December 1938, Page 12

DIVIDED OPINION

THE LONDON PRESS

VOLUNTARY SERVICE

TEST OF PUBLIC

SPIRIT

(By Telegraph—Pres3 Association—Copyright.)

(Received December 2, 2.45 p.m.)

LONDON, December 1

Press comment is divided between favouring Sir John Anderson's voluntary scheme and preferring compulsion, or, thirdly, accepting the voluntary plan as a test.

"The Times," making the view last mentioned, asks: "Will the plan satisfy the nation, in which there is undoubtedly a lively feeling that the Government should have struck while the iron of relief at the Munich settlement was hot and demanded a drastic measure of national organisation and training. No doubt it is less dramatic than some would have wished, but it possesses the supreme virtue of offering a thorough test of the public spirit of the nation. Everything depends upon the response to the appeal in the New Year."

The "Daily Telegraph" outspokenly declares: "A measure which taps only part of the nation's man-power cannot be enough. A voluntary register reveals numbers of those willing to offer for service but gives no guidance regarding those who are capable of giving service. It will be difficult, if registration is optional, for people in the mass to realise that it is an urgent duty. It will seem as though the Government is not very much in earnest after all."