THE EMPIRE AND MAN POWER.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 29 May 1917, Page 2

THE EMPIRE AND MAN POWER.

Since there can be no certainty In a war of this magnitude, there is sound sense in the argument that while hoping for the best we should prepare foi tne worst by setting ,ou foot at once the necessary steps for calling up the utmost reserves of the Empire s man power. One lias only to consider tne extent to which our industiies, and especially agriculture, are already suffering by the claims which the Army has made on our manhood to realise that our own resources are nearing exhaustion. That being so we i must look further afield. Undoubtedly in the past there has been a sentimental prejudice against the employment, even in non-combatant services, of the native races of the Empire. A beginning has been made in this direction, but it has been with a faltering and hesitating hand. The disproportion between the number of bayonets we are actually able to put into the lighting line and the number of men on communications is admittedly very great. There would be an immense saving if men at present engaged on non-cobatant work behind the lines could be moved forward into the trenches and their places Tilled by coloured labour. The problem is one of exceeding difficulty, but there are an enormous number of men employed in civilian work at home, who have had experience overseas in the control of coloured workmen. What is required is a man with the necessary organising ability, and the necessary imagini ation to evolve this new machine in time for it to be set working in the spring of 1918. If that is done then indeed we might look with some conlidence to the conclusion of a victorious peace in the autumn of the present year. For the Germans would not be ignorant o’f what we were doing, and with certain disaster confronting them in 1918 we might reasonably hope that they would seek to anticipate events by closing with the best peace conditions they could obtain before the weight of this new power fell upon them.

It may be that these considerations have weighed with the Allied Higher Command in the military dispositions they have made at Salonika. It has often been asserted that the expeditionary force under General Sarrail is too strong for defensive and not strong enough for offensive purposes if a serious campaign in the Balkans is to be attempted. There is much truth in what Mr. Winston Churchill said on this subject in the House of Commons the other day. His contention is that in the earlier days of the war we might have hoped to have effected decisive results in the Balkans with relatively small armies, which would not have imposed an insuperable burden on our carrying capacities. Mr. Churchill’s view is that that time has now passed. Apart altogether from the new strain which Germany’s policy of super-frightfulness on the seas imposes on our shipping, Bulgaria’s entrance into the war, and the opening of a free road to Germany from Constantinople, have immensely increased the difficulty of carrying out in the Balkans a campaign which would give really decisive results. If i Turkey were forced to sue for a separate peace the situation would be changed greatly in our favour, and with the limited knowledge at cur disI posal no one is quite justified in harassing Mr. Lloyd George and his colleagues with demands that the Expeditionary Force at Salonika should be reduced in order that a corresponding strengthening on the Western front might be effected.