MARRIED RECRUITS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 126, 29 May 1915, Page 9

MARRIED RECRUITS

TO THI EDITOS. Sir, — I am astonished that more emphasis is not laid on the economic side of recruiting married men for the war. The pension for widows and orphans nay individually be small, but collectively it will be a heavy drag on our resources for nt least half a century, and will coat hundreds of thousands of pounds. All honour to the brave fellows who 'are fighting in our defence ! No money we oan pay thorn or their dependents is too much for their services, but why should we encourage family men to fight, not only for thoir wive* and ohildren, but to safeguard thousands of single men who stand idly by and consider thoir whole ■duty performed if _ they attend a round of pleasant entertainments "in aid of the war?" Conscription would mean Parliamentary sanction and the usual Party squabbles, but Government could exercise ite_ present powers, and (ia thie time of national danger) call out the firstclass of the miiitia. It vva» done here fifty years ago. If for three days or a week — in tl» evenings, so as not to stop work or business— tho unmarried men, of all clafiaen were oaUed out under penalty for absence, we should know bow many persons w© hive fit or unfit for service, and te«t the validity of the paltry excases now made by some who have the outward appearance of txsen. — T am, etc., VALHALLA, i .Weftisgtoot 89th Mat, 1816.