NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1023, 12 January 1911, Page 2

NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE.

Sir,—The leading article entitled "National Service League".-that appeared in 1 your columns on Saturday, last is rather, misleading; Among other statements, that article declares that the "voluntary" Territorial system has failed; that the National Service League is making rapid progress/and tha.t-.this league is "a nonparty. organisation, draivifig its, support from members' of all parties.. lii answer to the first of these statements, it may be said tho Opposi,®)! attack the present Territorial system for' party . purposes, and that many of'; tho leading experts consider it a success. .-Mr. 'Arch. Hurd has presented: the case fot;a strong naVy and against -a large cOnipulsory-trained" army, in recent. I 'numbers of the "Portnightly: Review."'-'The second statement, that the. "national Service League" is making rapid progress, is .to. some extent true; but lit is progressing only among the aristocratic and wealthy classes of Great Britain. Mr. Robert M'Nab, who is certainly not biassed against the league, gave, evidence to_ this effect last year. Filially, it is quite incorrect to state that .the National Service League .is non-party; i a glance: at-its executive is enough to destroy this 'illusion. The executive consists of "fnaiiy ardent Tariff Reformers and a-few luke-warni Liberals. No Radical of influence approves of the league's objects. All true Liberals _belicvo that this league is but a fighting wing of the Tory party; compulsory military training meets with less favour among the Liberal press than even Tariff Bcform. In short, tho National Service League is laughed at by the Labour, Radical, and Nationalist parties, disliked by tiie official Liberal Government, and supported only by the more irresponsible leaders'of the "Conservatives, by fiery "damn-the-consequences" aristocrats like' Lord, Curzon and by Tory reactionaries like the editor of tho "Spectator."—l am, etc., AJAX. _ January 9, 1911. [Members oil both sides of the House of Commons support 'the objects of the league.] ' ,