68 
RECRUITING. 
were ever called before the Wantage Committee, not a man, and I 
believe I am correct in saying that only within the very last month 
have the authorities gone so far to enquire seriously into the organisa¬ 
tion of the Royal Marines, and to find out why it is that the Royal 
Marine service is popular, and why enlistment in the corps is not 
stagnant (applause). 
What we must Offer to the Recruit. 
I will not occupy your time much longer, but I should just like to 
complete my argument as it presents itself to me. I think we require 
for the interest of the recruit a long service term, or the opportunity of 
long service, which gives a career, and the option to a man to obtain a 
pension if he desires it (hear, hear). We must also have a short 
service term in order to give us a reserve. And I believe anyone who 
works out that problem will come to the same conclusion that I have 
come to, namely, that if you are to get men to devote themselves to 
only three years service in the army, you must take them very young 
indeed; and that if you take them very young you must, as Lord 
Lansdowne has very justly and truly said, treat them as boys until they 
become men as they do in the Royal Navy. That doctrine, if accepted, 
will no doubt bring about the consequence which is obviously the 
logical development of enlisting boys, to have schools for training them 
if we are to have any success. 
The Question of Pay. 
I believe that pay is a very small matter in this question, I mean the 
initial pay, but that pay later on is a very important question, and I 
want to see the plan which is so much in vogue in the army of giving 
gratuities for various classes done away with, as far as possible, and the 
plan in vogue in the navy and marines substituted for it, namely, that 
of giving men additional pay for every accomplishment they acquire 
(applause). There is no discontent in the navy or marines on account 
of one man getting more than another; a man says (( very well, I am 
not as good a man as so and so is, because I have not done this or 
that,” and there is always a chance for that man to do something 
better and earn a permanent addition to his pay. 
How to Treat the Soldier. 
The remarks which I have made have been, if not precisely vague, in 
a sense superficial from my own point of iview. I feel that this is a 
question that cannot be properly treated in a few stray sentences; in 
every branch of it there is a subsidiary branch quite apparent to my 
own intelligence, and I am sure infinitely more apparent to the intelli¬ 
gence of those who are dealing with these matters every day. But I 
would say, in conclusion, that to my mind the great error is that we do 
