Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1916. A PEACEFUL REVOLUTION

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 18, 22 January 1916, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1916. A PEACEFUL REVOLUTION

A cable message of the sth January reported London, as "simmering with excitement," and as "gradually working up to a climax." The occasion was the introduction of the Military Service (No. 2) Bill, by which the Government had decided to compel the enlistment of unmarried men without dependents in order to fulfil Mr. Asquith's pledge .and save Lord Derby's', scheme. The excitement of London was shared in Berlin, where much talk about Britain's "desire to bluff her Allies" and "a measure of purely political significance" was designed to cover a nervous apprehension that, casting her fetish-worship of liberty and dread of "militarism" to the winds, Britain was about to take the step which would guarantee to the Allies a permanent superiority in man-power and the ultimate defeat of Germany. The one hope of Germany was based on the threatened opposition of Labour to the Compulsion Bill and -the avowed determination of a noisy section of it to carry this opposition to the point of industrial revolution. But Germany's fears have proved to bo well founded, and her one hope has vanished. The Compulsion Bill has passed through Committee' in the House of Commons, not entirely -without opposition, it is true, but with so little opposition as in view of the momentous and unprecedented character of the measure to be almost negligible, and to give no encouragement to the expectation of an industrial war in Britain that might save Germany from defeat. Mr. BonarLaw, whose association with Mr. Asquith seems to have given him some of his former antagonist's happy knack of saying the right thing, has complimented all sections of the House on their restraint in dealing with a difficult measure. If the bitterness, not to say ferocity, that has been displayed on both sides of the controversy during the last six months be recalled, the general restraint which has distinguished its final stage must indeed appear wonderful. The danger to the national unity which Mr. Asquith properly declared in anticipation to bo tha chief /practical objec^nJ^£qnjsCHptic^_£b^ ;;^s»Bn^ed}

at the fateful moment. The climax of : controversy, which not .long ago threatened to rend the nation has produced a magnificent display of unity. Though Britain's recruiting methods have throughout been so spasmodic, uncertain, and unbusinesslike as to present a complete contrast, to the clockwork regularity of the German scheme, the national talent for muddling through to a successful issue seems likely to be again exemplified. Had the whole business .been carefully stage-managed, instead of developing slowly and laboriously through acrimonious controversy and prolonged indecision, resulting in the inevitable compromise, the outcome could hardly have been more impressive or more generally satisfactory. The brilliant success of Lord Derby's campaign, with its three million recruits, seemed at first to have assured the triumph of the voluntary system. ' Then it was threatened with collapse by the discovery that more than half a million single men had refused to attest. Either these men had to be rounded up, or all I the married men must be released in pursuance of the official pledge. It was not clear that the Government and the Parliament and i;he nation would have the courage to swallow their prejudices against compulsion even to avert this disaster, but they have all done their duty manfully. Even so, the victory of compulsion is but limited and incomplete. It has supplied a necessary link in the chain, but the chain has still to be extended and strengthened. Not only will the bulk of the new recruits still be enEsted on a voluntary basis, but the indefatigable Lord Derby is about to launch a new campaign, which aims impartially at the married and tha unmarried. Thus the two principles will proceed concurrently in the moat impressive combination possible. Compulsion will be applied to the small proportion of the free single men who fail in their duty—they have still a chance for repentance—but a great campaign on voluntary lines will renew the enthusiasm of the last two months of last year, and promote a further flow of new recruits. The conscript part of Britain's armies will be but a small, and probably a steadily diminishing, part of them. The response to the first call on the recruits already enrolled under Lord Derby's original scheme is likely to provide a powerful stimulus to the new venture. On the strength of a wise official warning against appeiring in good clothes, many of the recruits are said to be appearing in the guise of tramps and beggars. Last month we were told that the wearers of tall hats were jostling with costermongers in the long queues of men waiting to sign on. Neither tall hats nor black coats will any longer be in evidence. Early in the war the Germans were being told that the British Navy was being manned by the sweepings of the gaols and the slums, and in the tramps and beggars now crowding to the colours they may find evidence that the Army is in equally dire straits. Confident that the Derby recruits will show1 the same qualities as the men who have been adding to the glories of the British Navy, let us not grudge to Germany this crumb of consolation. They will, in Lord Derby's words, "hang on and'fight until the Germans have been thoroughly thrashed," and they .will laugh best who laugh last.