RECRUITING. 
71 
With reference to the number of fraudulent enlistments that take 
place he suggested that the Recruiting Officer should be assisted by the 
police. The majority of the offenders are or might be well known, and 
the presence of a policeman in the neighbourhood of a recruiting office 
would probably be a useful deterrent. 
Captain E. E. Norris, R.A., having been adjutant of 1st Depot 
Division Field Artillery while some 8,000 recruits passed through it, 
found that about 10% deliberately enlisted, giving up other employment 
and coming straight from their homes to do so, and these generally 
joined well dressed, with good boots, collars and ties ; about 30% 
enlisted willingly but did not do so until out of work, though they had 
often contemplated joining the army ; another 20% enlisted willingly 
but had never thought of doing so until they were out of work; the 
great majority of this 60% were excellent recruits. The remaining 40% 
were driven to enlist by hunger ; they were mostly in rags and the 
greater part were bad characters. A book was kept of the men thought 
likely to prove unsatisfactory and at the end of three months more 
than 75% of their names had disappeared owing either to desertion or 
proof of fraudulent enlistment. Capt. Norris thought that, in order to 
increase the “ 10% class ” of willing valuable recruits, there must be a 
large decrease in the “ 40% ragged class,” and recruiting officers should 
be encouraged to refuse to enlist men of the latter class ; the recruiting 
sergeant has to forfeit his “ bringing money ” if a man he brings proves 
to be a fraud, and Capt. Norris thought he might be fined 10s. 6d. for 
enlisting a fraud who turns out to be such very soon after he enlists. 
Lt.-Col. H. Kilgour, Staff Officer for Recruiting, Woolwich District, 
spoke of the effect that prospects of non-employment when in the 
reserve have on recruiting ; he thought that the Army Poster as dis¬ 
played is very misleading, take for instance the Post Office and railway 
companies ; in two and a half years he had been offered seven appoint¬ 
ments for reserve soldiers in the Post Office, and of them the largest 
pay offered was 10s. a week. 
The railway companies have not asked for a single man in two and a 
half years, though bi-monthly lists of reserve men desirous of and 
recommended for employment have been sent to them. He found on 
enquiry that soldiers only get employment on the railways by concealing 
the fact of their belonging to the reserve. After giving instances of 
difficulty of getting employment in government departments, Colonel 
Kilgour said he thought there was room for another Corps of Commis¬ 
sionaires for reserve soldiers, to be run on the same lines as Sir Edward 
Walter’s but managed by the War Office, and felt sure that like its 
prototype it might be self-supporting and at the same time prove a 
valuable means of employment for the reserve soldier and thus an aid 
to recruiting. He concluded by assuring Mr. Arnold Forster that the 
recruiting offices at St. George’s Barracks were not the worst in the 
country, and invited the lecturer to visit the Woolwich establishment. 
Lt.-Col. F. A. Yorke, R.A., Assist.-Commandant R.M. Academy, 
who was a recruiting officer in S. Ireland during a period of great 
disturbance, spoke of the extraordinary difficulty he found in getting 
