with which the ordinary man is only remotely concerned-an affair of interest to the soldiers alone.

There is nothing to surprise us in this attitude of mind. For ages our people have seen nothing of invasion; for more than a century even the fear of such a thing has been unknown. When they are told of the dangers that would arise from a permanent German occupation of Belgium, they do not understand, or they refuse to believe. This is partly due to want of imagination, but far more to the pernicious fallacy that underlies our military system-with its strange disproportion between the Foreign Service Army and the Territorial Force the fallacy that this country can and should be defended within its own shores. It is not within our borders but across the seas that our defensive battles are to be fought. But the fallacy clings, and the man who has imbibed it says, 'We've been told we only want 300,000 men to stop any invading force that could land. You've got half as many again now. What do you want with more?' And what are we to say of that other still more deadly delusion, that it is time enough to begin to drill your men when war breaks out; it will only take six months to turn them into soldiers! Six months! and meanwhile what may happen? The piteous appeals for 'men, more men' that occur every day in the letters from the front published in the newspapers teach us what we or rather our soldiers abroad-are paying for the delay. But the ordinary man at home, who has been lulled into lethargy by these false prophets of politicians, replies, when the appeal is made, ‘Time enough! The fleet's all right'; or 'If the Germans land, I'll come-not before.'

If the ideas of national defence and military duty which have been inculcated for years past are to blame for much of the reluctance which is now seen, the unduly optimistic tone adopted by many newspapers, the blatant headlines, the exaggeration of small successes, the minimising of reverses, even the speeches of some of our public men, increase the difficulty of recruiting by diminishing the appearance of necessity. It is, we venture to think, a pity that the First Lord of the Admiralty constantly attempts to minimise the losses that we have suffered at sea. He deplores, in a perfunctory way, the

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loss of life; the ships, we are always told, don't matter, or matter little. But they do matter; the loss of a ship like the 'Bulwark' matters a good deal. And even Lord Kitchener, in expressing, as he has done more than once, his satisfaction at recruiting, adopts an optimistic tone which is, to say the least, not stimulating. We do not want to scare the public; but neither do we want to reassure them too much. We hold our own in Belgium, it is true, but that is far from being enough. There is still cause enough for anxiety; and the decisive victory, short of which we cannot be satisfied, is still far off, and demands greater efforts than any we have yet made. But what is likely to be thought by the man in the street when he reads in the columns of one of the most widely read of our daily papers, under the name of a correspondent who, it is to be presumed, 'draws' the ignorant public, a report like the following:

'Of this German retreat from Northern Belgium there is no doubt. The German right is smashed like a fallen wine-glass. The retreat is no less than a rout. Their rifles, their stores, some of their guns, and even some of their wounded comrades the Germans have left behind in their rush from this fatal battlefield-which has been rated as the most stubborn and bloodthirsty of the whole war. The flooding of the German positions, a natural piece of strategy which German generalship seems to have most blunderingly overlooked, came only as a climax of disaster, not as the root cause. The Germans' chance was well on the wane before that. Their generals had butchered man after man, battalion after battalion, in striving to cross the Yser Canal by brute force, and all without success. They were lying like beaten dogs, licking their wounds, when the floods came upon them.'

The execrable taste of the last sentence will not escape observation, but the delusive effect of the whole passage is deplorable. And this precious piece of would-be picturesque journalism was published on Nov. 6, just before the opening of the tremendous attack which culminated on Nov. 11. What do you want with more soldiers,' says the man in the street, if the Germans are getting beaten like that?'

Mr J. A. Grant, M.P., writing to the 'Times' on Nov. 24, avows his opinion, formed after three months' experience, that

...

'the reason more men do not join is that they see no necessity for doing so These men form their opinion from the public press, with the result that they have the conviction that this matter with Germany will be easily and victoriously settled in a few months. They read of nothing but victories for the Allies . . . The true proportions of the struggle are seldom, if ever, presented to their minds. The natural result

is that only a fraction see the necessity of enlisting.'

For this mistaken optimism, however, it is not fair to blame the newspapers alone, or even chiefly; they get their news principally from the Press Bureau, and what they publish must have the approval of that body. It is the Press Bureau that sets the tone; and, if the tone is mistaken, as we believe, the responsibility is mainly theirs.

On the other hand, it can hardly be doubted that neither the War Office nor the Admiralty has sufficiently realised the stimulating effect of vivid narratives setting forth the gallant deeds of the army, and especially of individual regiments or battalions. It is well known that the story of the brilliant charge made by the London Scottish at Ypres led immediately to an enormous increase in the numbers anxious to join that regiment. But that charge was no isolated or exceptional event; many other regiments have distinguished themselves in a similar manner. The difference is that we hear nothing about them, or the action is related without any mention of the corps by which it was performed, or perhaps it crops up casually weeks afterwards through a Brigade Order published in a local paper. One such Order, in which the splendid performance of the 1st Loyal North Lancashires, the Northamptons, and the 2nd King's Royal Rifle Corps on Oct. 23 is described, was published by the 'Times' on Nov. 17. As the Times' very truly says, 'The simple publication of General Bulfin's Order . . . would have done more for recruiting in Lancashire than all the perfunctory posters issued at great cost by the War Office. Again, on Nov. 23, Sir Henry Lucy called attention to a letter of the 'Times'' correspondent describing 'one of the most wonderful bayonet charges that have been seen during the war,' and pertinently asked, 'Why should the name of this company of heroes be suppressed?' He surmises that the Censor struck it out,

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or that the correspondent, knowing it would be struck out, omitted it; and he adds: The result is cruel injustice to gallant men, grave discouragement to others in the fighting line, and the ignoring of a splendid opportunity

of inciting recruiting at home.' It would be easy to multiply examples of this mistaken reticence, but these may suffice. It is absurd to suppose that the enemy is unaware what regiments he has in front of him, or of their strength or character. The information we desire could be of no use to him, and would be of great use to us.

Apart from these questions of the Press and the dissemination of news, a serious drawback to the recruiting campaign is to be found in the physical and other conditions of service, including in these the state of the camps and other centres where the men are collected, the accommodation and food provided, the want of uniforms and equipments, etc. To say that these conditions, at the outset, left much to be desired, would be putting the matter far too mildly. There was no excuse for the state of things which existed, as a rule, till recently, except that it was only part, and an inevitable part, of our general unpreparedness. The War Office cannot be blamed-the responsibility for this, as for other shortcomings, lies elsewhere; and we are happy to believe that accommodation and other arrangements, though still far from perfect, are much improved. But that they have acted as a drag upon recruiting there can be little doubt. Soldiers, both officers and men, expect to 'rough it,' but they may at least claim to be kept warm and dry and to be decently fed; and this for a long time was not the case. Not only were they disgusted, but their health suffered. Writing a month ago ('Times,' Nov. 9), Mr G. Pragnell, chairman of the Employers' Territorial Association, said:

"The greatest drawback to recruiting is dissatisfaction with the management. I find this feeling exists among miners, agricultural labourers, factory hands, and bank clerks alike. .. The state of things in the training camps is now known all over the country. These conditions are quoted against me wherever I go. For our good lads and true surely the best is not too good, instead of giving them the same menu of poor food day after day, verminous bedding, all sorts and conditions of clothing supplied by voluntary

L

contributions, and practically nothing in the shape of entertainment.'

He recommends that the War Office should hand over 'the accommodation, sanitation, food, clothing and recreation of all the training camps in Great Britain' to a committee of business men. But no; here again the military authorities ignore the willing civilian, and prefer, overworked as they must be, to do the job themselves, with the result of indefinite delay, damage to the men's health, and discouragement of recruiting. The 'Daily Chronicle,' on Nov. 6, pointed to the rejection by the War Office of the offer of help from the Board of Education as most unfortunate, and proceeded :

'Refusal to accept local and civilian help in non-military matters has been at the root of most of the mismanagement; and we fear that the unfavourable reports from enlisted men are still a main obstacle to recruiting.'

It is only right to mention in this connexion the splendid work of the Y. M. C. A., which has supplied recreation tents, books, games, writing materials, etc., with temperance canteens, thereby doing much to relieve the inevitable boredom of camp-life, to keep the men happy, and to counteract the temptations which surround them.

The state of things in the camps, to which we have referred, is only, we may hope, a temporary drawback. A more serious obstacle is to be found in the pecuniary arrangements-the rate of pay, the allowances for wives, children and other dependants, the provision for widows and orphans, and for disabled men. The question is a complicated and difficult one; and to enter upon it in detail would involve too long a discussion. Moreover the Government has already made some concessions to public feeling in favour of generosity; and, as an impartial Commission has been appointed to consider the whole matter, it will be well to await their report.* But certain general considerations may be offered.

Representatives of the working classes, supported by the 'Daily Citizen' and by Mr R. Blatchford in the Clarion, have put forward a programme which at least

MP., in the 'Review of Reviews' for November.

We may refer here to a short but striking paper by Mr G. N. Barnes,