RECKUITINa. 
61 
to be a revolution that requires an amount of argument to sustain and 
justify it far in excess of anything I have yet heard put forward in 
support of this new fad (applause). 
The Infantry Recruit—Characters. 
I have not yet quite done with the subject of how we appeal 
to individual men. We take a man and we enlist him in a battalion. 
We have not had him a twelve month before we move him out of that 
battalion. There may be reasons — and I think I know what are supposed 
to be the reasons alleged as in favour of that process—-but I have never 
yet been able to ascertain with what principle of human nature or upon 
what principle of common knowledge that practice coincides. I have 
never yet seen why it should be necessary to enlist a man in a battalion 
here in England, and within a year to transfer him to a totally different 
battalion which, barring the fact that it has the same name, or has 
recently acquired the same name, has nothing whatever to do with that 
battalion. Nor can I understand in what way that is a wise, and from 
a moral point of view, an economical measure. There is another point 
to which I should here like to refer. I feel there is a great loss of 
power in not demanding any sort of character from the men who 
enlist (applause). I know there are two views about that, I know there 
is a very strong view in the direction which I take; I know there is a 
view also which many have expressed, and which is seriously enter¬ 
tained by them to the effect that you cannot get better soldiers than 
what Lord Charles Beresford designated the other day as the 
“ scallywag class.” Now there are two classes of scallywag; there is 
the class of of scallywag which Lord Charles Beresford belongs to and 
the class he does not belong to. Take all of the first-class you can 
get, take all the devil-may-care fellows, the fellows who do not care 
and who have not made their plans for the future. But do not take 
the bad lots—the men who are bad characters and known to be so, 
because if there be one thing more fully ingrained in the English 
character than another it is a reluctance to see men you are acquainted 
with, children you are responsible for, mixing with men and boys of 
bad character (loud applause). I do not know that we are better or 
worse than our neighbours, but anybody who knows anything about 
English character, from the highest to the lowest, and I believe it even 
more strongly about the lower than the higher, is aware that there is 
that feeling ingrained in their character. Nothing I am convinced, 
has done more harm to the army, and nothing has done more good to 
the navy, than the difference in practice in these two matters. I 
know there are officers who have made strenuous efforts to insist 
on the production of some sort of character by the men who join 
the regiments, and have not been encouraged in that pursuit by the 
War Office. But I am of opinion that it would be a great advantage, 
that it would put the army more in harmony with English traditions 
and give us a better chance of obtaining good men, if the present hap- 
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