SCIENTIFIC RECRUITING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 242, 22 March 1915, Page 4

SCIENTIFIC RECRUITING.

Attention is called by an article in a recent number of the Spectator to the first step taken by the British Government towards a systematic recruiting. Tlie experiment is an attempt to find a via media between conscription and the abandonment of volunteering to mere individual impulse. The Government's plan is to issue circulars, posted to every householder in the country, appealing to each of them to send in the names and ages of all persons in *is household who are able and willing to serve the nation in arms. This plan brings home to every man the direct personal appeal "Will you, if eligible, serve your country in the present campaign, and also pass on this appeal to any other men under your roof who are eligible?" it is, of course, impossible to forecast the result of the appeal. It is assumed that enclosed with the appeal is an intelligible form of reply. But how many of the householders addressed will take til.; trouble to fill in the /orm of reply 110 one can say. Thousands of them may simply put tho letter on the mantelpiece for further consideration and eventually forget all about it. Some provision should therefore be made for reminding the careless aiis indifferent. The replies should all be ticked off and then a determined attack made on those who have not replied. jA second appeal marked "urgent" should -at once be ported to them, and then a list of persons be told off to wait on those who have, ' still not replied, and bring the matter' homo to their consideration by remonstrance in conversation. Of course no human plan is perfect, but this plan is obviously an immense improvement upon that of leaving individuals to treat a general appeal according to their personal inclinations. There are thousands of men not hostile nor altogether indifferent, but not intensely- earnest enough to realise that tho country wants them. There rto numbera of people who reason the Government~w;ll get volunteers enough without having any need to bother. Such persons need to be told plainly that the Empire needs every man able to go to the front who has not some thoroughly satisfactory reason to give for not going. They need to be told plainly that the alternative is between more men and more months, that the time the war lasts defends largely upon the numbers of men who rally to the Empire's call, that every man able to render military ser'vice who declines to do so does something to prolong tho war, that every man who obeys the call does something to shorten it. They need to be reminded that within thirty or fortv miles »t the British shores some of t!i« fiercest battles recorded in history are now being fought, and that the destiny of the Empire depends upon tho result of those battles. They need to be reminded that the horrible atrocities and unspeakable outrages which have been perpetrated by tho Germans in Belgium and France are specimens of tho sort of things that will be done in England or in New Zealand if ever the German armies are permitted to land on the shores of any portion of the Empire. Nothing can inafco the safety of the) Empire certain but a league of determination to drive the 'Germans back embracing every man who is able to go to the front and not detained by imperative duties at home. There is plenty of sentimental sympathy with the Empire, but what we want is a scientific system for consolidating that sympathy into practical support. We should like to sec some similar pl;in to that adopted by the Home Govern-: ment taken up by this Dominion. If an appeal were issued by the mayors to every householder in our towns asking him to put to all men of military a«e beneath his roof the point blank question, 'Are you willing either to join the army, or if unable to do so to make a contribution to its support such as shall be the nearest possible approach to a compensation for the loss of yo«ir personal service," much good might be done. Every man ought to be made to feel the imperative duty, or, we should prefer to put it, the sacred honor of doing his best for the Empire in this hour of her stress and strain. We shouhl like to think that when the war is over there will not be one among us troubled with the remorse "I did nothing for the Kmpire's cause." We commend to the authorities the consideration of the plan most likely to call out the full strength «f oiiv towns and our Dominion to the Empire's support, and to .prevent the possibility of a single laggard being left among the residents of the towns and villages whose proudest designation is "Sons of the Empire."