BRITAIN MUST NOW FACE FACTS

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 354, 8 February 1937, Page 3

BRITAIN MUST NOW FACE FACTS

HOW RECRUITING FOR THE IMPERIAL ARMY COULD BE ACCELERATED.

DRAWBACKS OF THE SOLDIERING PROFESSION

In addressing a conference of the Press at the War Office recently the Adjutant-General to the Forces emphatically declared: “I do not believe in an ostrich-like policy. If a thing is a fact, why not say so?” Jhis it' a wise attitude in all human affairs. To pretend that troubles do not exist is the surest way to help them grow to the point where they are dangerous, writes the military correspondent of the London “Times.” The lesson has a particular application to the recruiting problem. It /would hardly be possible to proclaim • the need of recruits more insistently ’ than hjur been done during the pdst year. The zeal shown by the recruiting authorities could hardly be surpassed. Yet the fact remains that these efforts have not merely failed to remove the shortage, but that the ehortage is increasing in spite of them. And this fact shows that appeals will not suffice. Something more practical is required. Publicity can play an important part, but it has a lasting effect only when the piotute it conveys it,' justified by the reality. An Independent Inquiry. The Government’s spokesmen have announced certain measures that are being taken to make the Army more attractive. Welcome as these are, they hardly go far enough The ‘existing checks.' may be grouped under four heads; conditions of service, conditions in the service, conditions of foreign service, and conditions after service. The first turn mainly on the scales of payment, and the unfortunate difference between expectation and realisation. A promise of 14/- a week clear—.with food, clothes, and other needs, as well as pleasures, provided free—does not seem bad, if hardly enough to attract the type of man required for a skilled professional army. Rut the man has hardly enlisted before he learns' the inexactness of the inducements held out. He is promptly compelled to pay for a host of small items, varying with the regiment he joins. When the stoppages have been deducted, the soldier it' fortunate who is handed more than 10/- or 11/over the pay-table. Since nothing causes more sense of grievance than false promises, would it not be wiser to tell the prospective recruit, with the honesty that is the best policy, that he will receive "14/a week less certain deductions”? It would be better still if all that he really needs was provided, or hie pay raised proportionately. There is another rqb in the statement, "He has free food. Three good a day are served in dining halls.” For in- . adequacy of food has been among the soldiers’ strongest complaints, especially the obligation to buyAheir j

« j own suppers. Of late years a num- ‘ ’ her of regiments have managed, by - | good administration, to provide £up- ■ ■ pers for the men, but even now this i . is by no means universal. The coun- ’ j try should be a little more liberal in . * feeding its Army. ' While there may be no need for a ! considerable all-round increase of 1 pay, proficiency should be better rewarded than at present, if the level of efficiency is to be raised. This discrimination in favour of the good soldier is desired by the men themselves. The grading now is too gradual; the fully trained man in his fourth year of service earns' only a shilling a day more than the raw recruit. Indeed, conditions call for improvement in many ways. I have heard good regimental officers declare that when they go round the barracks they wonder that any man enlists. Such an opinion may exaggerate tbe badnets of barracks compared With housing conditions in some of our great cities, but it does not overrate, the shock that often awaits recruit} coming from decent hornet'. The Blue Uniform. No one is likely to disagree with the desirability of a smart appearance by day, and when walking out after the day’s work is over. But few serving fcoldiers have any desire to see full-dress brought back again, while the privilege of wearing mufti, although valued, is regarded as having its drawbacks, especially on foreign service. When young, and with a natural pride in themselves, they like to be recognised as soldiers but as workmanlike soldiers. In consequence the permission to wear blue has been much appreciated. The drawback has been that the soldier had to buy it for himself, and, it is good news that the Government is now .to make the provision. Btit the men do not want it to be so unadorned as 1 some generals have insisted in excessive zeal for uniformity. With true regimental pride they want it to bear some of the regimental distinctions, and a coloured stripe down the trousers.! according to the arm of the Service. In barrack life generally there are still too many restrictions and vexations which are out of tune with the modern spirit, and with common sense. Guards and roll call at night are among them, and in a number of stations they have been dropped for some time. Church parade is an old grievance—as a parade. Off duty the soldier should, share so far as possible the normal rights of the citizen. Many improvements and relaxations have been made jp. recent years, and zProgresEive commanding* officers have gone still farther than the official recommendations —with beneficial results. Most regimental officers now

agree that the system of passes is unnecessary. All that is really needed is a permanent pass marked “Reveille to reveille when not onduty,” and that merely as a safeguard against the inquisitiveness of the Military Police. Discipline. On duty, discipline has become much more sensible in recent years, although in some units the punitive element is still too prominent. No pasifist can do as much harm as a bullying and foul-mouthed N.C.O. Where he exists he is a bad advertisement for the Army, in attracting the youngsters of to-day, who are most of them only too eager to learn if intelligently taught. And the more the officers are in touch with the men the better a unit is likely to be.

Apart from such faults in the methods of discipline two more general causes of complaint tend to hinder recruitiiig. One is the obsolete state in which the Army’s equipment and consequently its training, has been left for so many years. The other is the way the soldier’s time is .still wasted in duties that have no serious relation to training for war. “Fatigues” are, above all, a fatigue to the soldierly spirit; and the effect is- w T orst when coal fatigues and similar drudgery are inflicted for weeks on recfuits who join their battalions eager to learn what soldiering means. Foreign Service, A more . concentrated grievance arises from the conditions of foreign service. When men enlist for seven years with the Colours the form that is given them has a footnote to the effect that, if the exigencies of the Service require it, they may be held for an extra year. In practice this enforced extension has become normal, and it it felt all the more because it prolongs the time they have to spend abroad. Parents of potential recruits, as well as the recruits themselves, dislike the thought of a five years’ absence, and are naturally aggrieved when they find that it becomes six. To make it worse, when they at last reach hoqie, they are apt to be discharged almost at 1 once, and find themselves “on the streets.” Thus the sense of broken promises which was implanted in the first week of their service, is renewed at the end. These averse conditions could be met if men were given long leave after three years’ service abroad and enabled to obtain a really cheap passage to England. Otherwise the foreign service system must be so reorganised that the tour abroad shall not last mora than four years, except for units specially recruited. Then men should have six or nine months at home before their service expires, and there should also be an extension of the system of vocational training. The Secretary for War was happily inspired when he declared in a recent speech that the removal of causes! for a sense of injustice should be the guiding problem, and he mentioned a no les£ desirable corollary when he laid down, as “a not impracticable ideal,” the aim of guaranteeing “to every man who joined the Army and left it at the end of his period of service with a good character that he should pass' straight from the Army into a good job.”