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rooms, and the fact that, at least in many cases, a class of men set the 
tone who positively make it intolerable for a decent man. For that the 
past history of the Army, and the fact that historically the Army was, 
at one time, recruited from the gaols and kindred sources, is largely res¬ 
ponsible. Though we have long since abandoned such practices, it is 
very hard to get rid of the after effects in the impression on the country 
as to the natural source of recruitment, and the class of men who are 
willing to enlist. 
Certain evidence has recently come before me, which I hope to take 
an early opportunity of laying before commanding officers, of cases 
in which very desirable young soldiers, who were made for the Army, 
have purchased their discharge for no other reason than this : that 
they could not stand what went on in the barrack rooms. That 
is, I think, a difficulty which we might somehoAV tackle before we can 
hope to greatly improve the character of our recruits. We must try if 
it is possible to prevent what absolutely is a fact now, that in many 
cases, not everywhere, the ascendency in the barrack room is in the hands 
of the worst men. In the middle of the 18th Century, the places from which 
they got the recruits for the army were the gaols—-that is the naked fact— 
and if you will read Wellington’s account of the men that he had in the 
Peninsula, his description, and the descriptions of the men who were round 
him at head quarters, of the kind of characters he had to deal with, you will 
see that a certain stamp was then fixed upon the barrack room, of 
which, in many cases, a trace remains not eliminated. That makes the 
path hard for a decent young fellow coming into it. It seems to me 
that that is one of the most serious difficulties we have to get over— 
if we can—if we are to make any improvement in the way of getting a 
better class into the army. We have greatly improved, but the tradition 
is not killed. 
To take the next point, the whole scheme to which Mr. Arnold- 
Forster leads up, valuable as much as he says about it is, is, in fact, 
the institution of short service enlistment of three years for home, 
and the Depot System for the supply of long service men in the 
Indian Army. There are depots and depots (hear, hear). I, myself, 
entirely agree with what Colonel Davidson and other officers have said 
about the value of the depot for its own proper purpose : the training 
of recruits (hear, hear)—so much so that I, myself, am always hoping 
we shall manage to get all recruits who join six months in a depot, but 
it is a question of money, because to change three months to six months’ 
service in the depot means doubling the depot barracks throughout the 
country. That is purely a Treasury question. The great advantage 
is that, at the end of that six months you will have put them through the 
special training for recruits, and you will send them in batches, as the 
Germans do, to join their battalions, instead of sending them in mere 
driblets. It is the only way in which we can get over the difficulty of 
our taking recruits at every day of the year, instead of as would be the 
case with compulsory enlistment, taking them all at one time. It was 
for that purpose that the depots were formed at General Bulwer’s 
advise. He did more in his time for recruiting than almost anybody. 
He wanted to prevent the possibility of the recruit going as a mere 
object of bullying by himself into the battalion. He "thought batches 
