56 
RECRUITING. 
“ Specials ” and C.O.’s Reports. 
I would like to say a word here witli regard to the question of 
“'specials/* and speaking to an audience of officers, I would respectfully 
venture to offer a word of advice about this matter. I know, of course, 
what is said about the value of specials, that very often they become 
excellent recruits. 1 know they are often very excellent soldiers ; I 
know regiments in which there has been a very large percentage of 
specials and the officers commanding them have told me, that taking the 
regiments through, the specials are perhaps as good a sample of the 
regiment as any other men in it. Well, I sometimes think that officers 
put their ideals a little too low in this matter (hear, hear) and I believe 
that a good deal of harm has been done by the reports of inspecting 
officers and, if I may say so, of commanding officers with regard to the 
men they get. They put their datum line too low and the result is 
that year after year we are informed in the House of Commons that the 
condition of recruiting is very satisfactory, that the reports from 
commanding officers about the class of recruits they are getting are 
very good, and that they have no reason to be dissatisfied. I am 
the last to speak a word in anything but praise of the sanguine spirit 
which induces an officer to make the best of whatever materials he has, 
but I do feel that there is a responsibility resting upon officers in this 
matter, when they know that what they say will go beyond the limits 
of the War Office; because these matters are brought before the world 
as matters of authority on the statement of commanding officers before 
Parliament, and it is absolutely impossible for members of Parliament, 
without very extensive enquiry or very special knowledge, to combat a 
report which comes sanctioned by the “imprimatur” of the signature of 
the commanding officer of the regiment, or of the inspecting officer. I 
do sometimes wish that those very favourable reports, which to ray 
mind do not coincide with the opinions which I hear frankly expressed 
by the officers in private, should be less frequently presented to us in 
the House of Commons, or in the public press (hear, hear and applause). 
The Limits op Recruiting and the Efforts of the War Office. 
Now, I said that we had nearly reached the limit of recruiting on the 
present terms. We have evidence, we have evidence which to my 
mind is incontrovertible on this point. Last session we had sanction 
given for the raising of several thousand men, and we know now that 
we are to have a large number of additional battalions—probably a 
large number of additional batteries—raised in the years to come. An 
effort lias been made to raise the men, I suppose there are very few 
officers in this room who have not made themselves acquainted with the 
result of that appeal to the ordinary sources of recruiting, and are not 
aware that that appeal has not been satisfactory. I have already 
stated elsewhere, how far it has been met with a response. I stated 
and I stated correctly, that up till the middle of October last the net 
recruiting for the two battalions of the Guards, the Scots and the 
Coldstreams, was nil. Do not let me be misunderstood; I do not 
mean to say men had not been obtained, men had been obtained, but 
