Within another twelve days the work of canvassing under Lord Derby’s scheme of recruiting will be completed, and what then? Will it be found that the work has been efficiently and effectively done, and that the number of men required has been enlisted?
Generally speaking, it may be taken that the work has been well done, and the voluntary canvassers are deserving of thanks for the hours and labour they have given to help in ensuring the success of the scheme.
But looking dispassionately at the methods which have been adopted in some quarters, one cannot but feel there have been many blunders, and that in one respect at least there will be considerable resentment felt and expressed.
This is in regard to what was, on all hands, believed to be a pledge that no married man, who gave in his name to serve, would be called up before all the available single men had been brought in. It turns out that this has been a misunderstanding, and consequently many married men have been enlisted under false pretences.
There are cases, of course, where it would be unwise to enlist a single man, for instance if he were specially skilled in work relating to munitions, but enough care has certainly not been taken to get hold of the shirkers who are existent in all directions.
What can be said of a case where the five sons of a farmer have registered themselves as cowman, ploughman, &c., and are all starred, while another only son of a farmer, who truthfully said he helped his father on the farm, is left un-starred, and is therefore expected to enlist?
Take other cases where grocers’ assistants and the like have suddenly become colliers in order to escape enlistment. Again, all colliers have been starred, and yet there are thousands of them unemployed for several days a week, owing to shortage of trucks.
What more reasonable than that the Government should close half the collieries, and transfer the married men to the open places, so as to release hundreds of young single men for war service. By what method can one justify the existence in one family of three or four young colliers all starred, while the son of a tradesman or farmer is un-starred?
The whole business is so mixed up that commonsense says the proper way to ensure the number of men from all the districts in adequate proportion would be that there should have been some measure of universal service and balloting.
Whereas in some districts the rush of recruits has been so great that it has resulted in hopeless congestion and the threatened breakdown of the recruiting staffs; here, with hundreds of available young men, the number of recruits has been little more than one a day during the past week.
The absolute waste of money on cards, and clerical work in connection with them, is one of the minor scandals of the war. We are told that this war has to be won, and the only way is by overwhelming weight of shells, and numbers of men.
Why not, then, get every available person on the making of the former, and get fit for the Front every man who can shoulder a rifle and is physically strong enough to go through the necessary training?
The longer these shilly-shallying methods of recruiting are tried, the more of our brave fellows abroad will never again see their homes on Britain’s shore.
