LIFE IN THE ARMY.

Evening Star, Issue 12883, 4 August 1906, Page 7

LIFE IN THE ARMY.

At a meeting of the Army League, London, Dr Millar Maguire spoke on the subject of 'The Lawless and Capricious Treatment of our Soldiers,' and said that the whole treatment of our soldiers for the past thirty years ha-d been an outrage on our race. That there should be 22.000 men driven into prison every year, and 7,750 driven into gaol by court-martial, was disastrous ruffianism. To condemn men for the whole of their lives without redemption for technical offences committed when they were mere boys was surelv a state of things which should be remedied. The food supply of our army was an infamy. The conditions of enlishmervt specified fresh meat, and not the filthv rubbish tho sale of which enabled the daughters of Chicago millionnires to buy English peers. Dr Maguire also criticised the system bv which boldiers were set to scrub floors and clean basins, and spoke of defaulters' drill as useless and degrading. Barracks were often abominable dens, and in no case satisfactory. At Salisbury Plain our soldiers lived in a convict condition. Such a state of affairs was most derogatory to recruiting. Sir Alfred Turner said that life in the army did not make a man fitter for civil employment, and the consequence was that the country was covered with old soldiers going about seeking work. The meeting Dassed a resolution expressing its conviction that soldiers are at a disadvantage aa compared with the civil population, in that the law fails to protect their rights; that a soldier who protected the countrv should himself Have equal protection with the civilian ; that the Government should be asked to appoint a cm™etent committee to investigate the question j and that the barracks accommodation and the food supply of our soldiers should be at once out on a level at least equal to that prevailing among the employers of any business establishment in London.