CONSCRIPTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 130, 4 June 1938, Page 6

CONSCRIPTION

BRITISH ATTITUDE

DOES NOT MEET NEEDS

The question of universal national service and of compulsory military service has been discussed at length in Britain during the last few years. In February Mr. Neville Chamberlain stated that "a scheme for compulsory national registration in time of war, if the Government of the day should so decide, has been in existence for some years. Proposals for compulsory, registration in peace time have also been considered, but on balance the advantages to be derived therefrom have been found to be outweighed by the difficulties and opposition "which would have to he surmounted."

The matter became a live issue in the years during which Mr. Duff Cooper was Secretary for War. Mr. Duff Cooper was known not to be satisfied with the recruiting position, and it was rumoured that he meant to' advocate a scheme of conscription. He strongly denied this in an address at the Constitutional Club, London, in Tanuary last year.

"I have said that if recruiting to the Regular Army does not improve the system will break down." said Mr. Duff CooDer. "I believe it will improve. But the alternative Is not necessarily conscription. I have never suggested it was, and people who talk lightly of conscription for the Regular Army have never given full consideration to the problem. It would not solve our problem at all. WOULD NOT MEET NEEDS. "We do not want a vast Regular Army for home service, such as exists on the Continent—we want a small Regular Army for foreign service. We do not want a vast trained army of men for home defence. We want * small, specialised, highly-trained Army for Imperial defence, and that conscription would never give us. '1 have never contemplated conscription in peace time as a possibility. At the same time, if war were to come again, if we were once more plunged into such a fearful catastrophe as another European war, there is little doubt that conscription would come, as it did in the last war. There is also little doubt tljat everything would move much more rapidly than it did in the last war. The tanks would move rapidly, and so would the minds of statesmen." After the occupation of Austria Lord, Lothian wrote a letter to "The Times" advocating the adoption of national service. The newspaper discussed the scheme in a leading article, whereupon Sir Auckland Geddes, who was Director of Recruiting at the War Office in 1916-17, and Minister of National Service in 1017-19, wrote a letter to "The Times" in which he discussed the question tit creating a register of .men of special skills, so as to avoid wastage of manpower. - _ -1, ' CONSpRIPTION'S FAILURE.

"In 1919 I was anxious that such a register should be maintained, in case a situation such as exists today anise," wrot« Sir Auckland Geddes. "On examination' ?t was held to be politically impossible to impose upon- the movements of Individuals such close 1 Supervision as would be riecessai'y. "In my view today a complete register, of the population, is not essential to our fullest war effort unless conscription is contemplated. I most sincerely hope that it is not. "With perhaps more knowledge than most of the working of conscription in this country, and as the only man now alive who has been responsible to Parliament for the day-to-day administration of compulsory military recruiting,, I hold the fully matured opinion that on balance the imposition ot military conscription added little if anything to the effective sum of our war effort. "Preparation and organisation on a voluntary basis appear to me not only desirable but relatively inexpensive and easy. Probably 90, per cent, of the theoretical advantages of compulsory national registration could be got on a properly organised , voluntary basis with none of the disadvantages of compulsion. I doubt if compulsory .registration would give us 95 per cent, of its theoretical advantages; it would certainly give us 100 per cent, of its disadvantages." Sir Thomas Inskip, Defence Minister, said last December: "In this country, except in war conditions, there will be no compulsory military service. But I do not know whether there will be a change in another generation. I believe that the spirit of Britain is capable under our Constitution of doing what is done in other countries under compulsion." THE MILITARY SIDE. Another aspect of the situation was set forth by the military correspondent of "The Times" during the discussion of Lord Lothian's letter. "Militarily there is reason to doubt its practical value," he said. "It is machinepower, not man-power, which counts in modern war; and of the weapons that matter even the most highly industrialised country is not capable of producing a quantity large enough to require more than a fraction of its manpower to manage them. In other spheres, too, such as air-raid precautions, there is a limit to the numbers that can usefully be employed. If we are still far short of that limit it is my impression from observation that we have been suffering more from inadequancy of organisation, throughout the sphere of defence, than from unwillingness to volunteer. Until (we have put our house in order it seems premature to worry about the question of filling it." .