RECRUITING. 
67 
men of the Royal Navy are drilled in a depot, all of them. I know 
that all the men in the Guards, although on a slightly different 
system, are drilled in a depot; and again, on a slightly different 
system, the whole of the men of the Royal Artillery were, till the other 
day, passed through a depot, although I admit there was a distinction 
between a depot of the Royal Artillery and a depot of the Royal 
Marines. I am at a loss, therefore, to understand what are the facts 
which justify a broad assertion of that kind that a depot-trained recruit 
is an inferior soldier (applause). I readily admit that a man drilled as 
men are drilled in our present infantry depots is not a well drilled 
soldier. 
Learning a Trade or another Lesson from the Royal Marines. 
But I would take yet another lesson from the Royal Marines. You 
want to get employment for the men. What happens ? They do not 
get it after they leave, you know they do not get it. I have over and 
over again looked through the employment book of the Royal Marines. 
The difficulty in their case is not to find men to employ the discharged 
marines, but to find men to take up the employment offered. Why ! 
The marine is taught a trade and an occupation. In the marines, the 
boots and the clothes for the whole corps are made, and the barrack 
repairs are executed by the men. We are told that we are going to 
have instruction given to men serving, that they are to attend technical 
schools and so on. Well, what will happen ? The plan will not 
produce any appreciable result whatever on the after life of the men. 
Moving about as our troops do on their present terms of service, we 
may dismiss from our minds the idea that there will be any serious 
result except in individual cases, or that under the system the plan of 
paying fees or giving assistance to soldiers attending technical classes, 
will result in their really learning a trade. The whole system must be 
a very different one. We find another very important thing in the 
marine depots, namely, that every soldier has a home. I believe too 
much importance cannot be attached to that question. The marine 
recruit leaves his depot at Walmer, and he goes to the Royal Marine 
Division at Devonport, Portsmouth, or Chatham, and to that Division he 
belongs to the end of his service. What happens ? He goes away 
three years on a cruise, comes back with a certain amount of money in 
his pocket, what does he do ? He goes into the sergeants* mess or 
the privates* mess room, and finds his old comrades there, the old 
pictures, the old chairs, and the old accommodation. He goes round 
into the institutions connected with the barracks, and finds his wife 
and the wives and friends of his own companions, all there ready to 
receive him. And what is more every farthing spent on the decoration 
and improvement of those divisional quarters endures for the benefit of 
the men of the Division. I believe that at this eleventh hour enquiries 
have been made by the War Office into that recondite subject, the 
organisation of the Royal Marines. I noticed that no marine witnesses 
