RECRUITING. 
68 
relieving officer (applause). And let me say this, that I believe firmly 
that this idea about Government employment of discharged soldiers has 
been misunderstood. I have myself taken an active part as far as I 
have been permitted to do so, in endeavouring to increase the amount 
of employment given in Government offices, hitherto we have been met 
with a stubborn resistance on the part of every department, except the 
War Office and the Admiralty. Soabsurd, if I may say so, is our 
governmental organisation, so cast-iron are the divisions between the 
departments, that I remember going with a deputation of gentlemen 
to the Postmaster-General asking him whether he would not consent 
to carry out the recommendation of commission after commission, and 
give certain specified employment to discharged soldiers. What did 
he say ? That personally he was convinced it was 'the right thing to 
do, that personally he was strongly sympathetic with the object in 
view, but that as Postmaster-General, he had to consider the feeling 
that would be elicited among the employees in his department if he 
were to take this departure which would deprive a certain number of 
other persons of the employment to which they considered they were 
entitled, but to which they had not the slightest legal right. 
As long as you are met in that way no doubt you can get no 
further ; if this matter is not to be regarded as a question for the 
Government as a whole, you may depend upon it that the promises 
which are made to us now, and which are a repetition of promises made 
last year and the year before, and every year as far as my recollection 
of blue books goes back, will end exactly where those promises have 
ended, and will produce no result whatever. But when all is said and 
done we must not deceive ourselves; the amount of Government 
employment in this country under the most favourable circumstances, 
is far short of: the demands which would be made on the Government 
if we were to expect to get employment for all short service soldiers 
discharged into the reserve. That is not possible. I say that as a 
caution, because we sometimes see in the Press and hear elsewhere 
suggestions that Government employment ought to be granted to 
every discharged soldier. All I want to say as a caution is that 
although we wish to see the employment largely extended, it is a mere 
delusion to consider that it can be a solution of the question. 
A Plea for more Colour in the Soldier’s Life. 
One more point, it is a very small matter, but it is one that does 
commend itself to me as an important matter. It seems to me that 
we are not doing enough to remove the grey tint of military 
service. After all, military service is hard, it is dangerous, it is not 
always exciting, and unless we bring into it the moral encouragement, 
excitement, and interest which can alone make it palatable, we shall be 
doing harm to the service. Even in such a small matter as the 
question of uniform, I think we have neglected those great truths. To 
begin with I have never yet seen why the tailoring department of the 
War Office should have been allowed to carry out all the changes with 
regard to uniform which it has decreed, I have paid some attention to 
