DODGING THE DERBY SCHEME

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 817, 25 February 1916, Page 8

DODGING THE DERBY SCHEME

The British Shirker. THERE'S no use denying or ignoring the fact that the shirker variety of Briton —alas that he should exist at all —is so numerous as to militate most seriously against the success of the much-vaunted Derby scheme of recruiting. That these 'wretched dodgers who are applying for exemptions should be aided and abetted by unpatriotic and selfish employers is quite as disgraceful as that shirkers themselves should put down their names as willing to fight for their country and then back out of their own sacredly entered into engagements. Frankly, we regard the cables received this week, dealing with the recruiting system at Home, as revealing not only a most discreditable, but very dangerous state of affairs, which, if it continues, can only be satisfactorily ended by the adoption of conscription. The war must be fought out by Great Britain to the bitter end, and to achieve that end an ample supply of men is just as necessary as an adequacy of munitions. * # * ■» The position on the Western front is evidently far from being what it might be. The enemy is not getting through to Calais and may never get there. But it is impossible to read recent cables without feeling that the enemy is more •firmly establishing himself in strong positions, wherein to meet the big Franco-British offensive, which not only must come, but must be successful before France—and later on Belgium—is free from the tigerish claws of the Huns. »■**■•- Russia has made a marvellous recovery, and she will rightly look to her Western Allies to score successes of equal importance to that achieved at Erzerum. But the inevitable depletion of the British forces in Flanders must be made good, and more than merely made good, by reinforcements from England, and if the dodgers and shirkers, aided by selfish employers, tremb ling over the probable loss of a few hundred pounds worth of business, refuse to do their duty, those needed, reinforcements will not be forthcoming. Voluntaryism is, we fear, on its last legs in England. Unless it picks up a new strength, and that very quickly, conscription must come. Perhaps the very best thing that could happen to the Old Country would be for a big fleet of Zeppelins to pour bombs over every

district where the shirkers are numerous. The sight of Englishwomen and English children being massacred by the Hun miscreants might then effect what all the appeals of recruiting speakers and returned soldiers have failed to do.