78 
RECRUITING. 
There is only one point I missed, which I should like to allude to. I see it 
is made a matter of reproach to officers with regard to their conduct towards 
recruits that they, or perhaps their injudicious advocates, have objected to the 
task of perpetually occupying themselves with the instruction of the recruits when 
they are sent to join their battalions. The charge is put in this way, and I am 
made the channel of laying it against the department. “Mr. Arnold -Forster 
paints a moving picture of the dissatisfaction of regimental officers at home on this 
subject”, that is the instruction of recruits. “ No doubt this part of their duty is 
not pleasant to them; they have to spend much time as military schoolmasters 
just as officers of the German and Trench armies are obliged to do. These fully 
recognise that the strength and efficiency of their armies depend upon the proper 
performance of that duty, and they conform to that plan.” I have not heard 
British officers complain, but 1 do wish to point out that there is a vital difference 
between the circumstances in the two cases, that the German officers are preparing 
the recruits to serve under themselves, and the officers in our battalions are 
preparing recruits to serve under someone else (applause). I do not think that I 
need—if I do need, I must humbly accept it—the caution which was very wisely 
given to us, I think, by Colonel Turner, to conduct this controversy in a 
temperate spirit, and with an absence of personalities. I do not know that I am 
justified in thinking that the small part I have taken in the controversy so far has 
been marked by that quality (applause) but I have no greater desire than to 
conclude it as far as my part goes in the same spirit as that in which I began it. 
I am exceedingly obliged to you gentlemen (loud applause). 
Major-General F. J. Maurice, c.b., Commanding Woohvicli 
District, summed up as follows :— 
Chairman : It is my duty now to sum up the discussion which has 
taken place. It appears to me that it has been very natural that 
Mr. Arnold-Forster’s lecture should have been welcome to us here. He 
needed no apology on the ground of his being a civilian speaking to 
soldiers. That it should have been received as warmly as it has been, 
is a clear expression of your feeling, that the one thing we all want is to 
get the country outside the Army to take an interest in the Army 
(applause). I am, however, not quite sure whether the applause with 
which certain parts of the lecture have been received among us, is not a 
little deceptive as to the practical results to which it leads up. We all 
sympathise with what Mr. Arnold-Forster has said, for instance, about 
the exceeding importance of improving the character of the recruits if 
we can. Hut the whole question is one of experiment as to whether it is 
possible for us to take such testimonies, as to character, as wall stop the 
enlistment of a number of men who now come to us—not at all bad 
felloAVS, but a large number of whom enlist under feigned names—and 
again a large number who enlist for one reason or another, that they do 
not want to give an account of. As Lord Charles Beresford put it the 
other day—We can’t afford to lose the Scalawags. That we should 
immediately exclude the whole batch of those classes, present enormous 
difficulties to my mind. If we can, by any means, without losing them, 
insist on evidence as to character, there is no question about the advan¬ 
tage that it would be in all aspects. 
There is another point which has been touched on by Colonel Foote, 
viz., the difficulty we all have of knowing what goes on in barrack 
