Comb Out "The Forces. II 1 By "The Inspector."
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I cannot pretend to the slightest knowledge as to how many fighting men it takes to hold a mile of trench, how many reserves are necessary for a battalion in heavy action, how many men go to a machine-gun crew, or how many again can be stuffed inside a tank. My common sense tells me that considerations of cubic capacity alone limit the numbers on a man-of-war, be it super-Dreadnought or patrol boat. I can well imagine that, providing there is elbow-room, the more men per square mile of actual fighting area the better, although there I reef be wrong! I know little of these things, a medical board and Father Time having decreed that I carry on in other ways in war time. But I am aware that the number of men who can profitably be employed on any given industrial job is strictly limited and is governed by perfectly obvious circumstances.
It is admitted, then, that the demand for men, and more men yet, according to a nation's means, must necessarily be a never-ending cry in a great war. The need for fighting men is Unlimited. It is "odds on" the side of the big battalions, but not necessarily on that of the biggest Army Service Corps or Army Pay Corps. To my civilian mind there can be no limit to the number of fighting men that a great nation should have if it can get them, and there must likewise be no limit to the efforts put forward to get thoee men. But there must be common sense and sanity in the tackling of this greatest of problems. The fighting forces are not best served by simply ensuring that every man shall be costumed in khaki: the real problem is to make certain that every man that is'put into uniform is turned to the best possible account.
Of the composition of the parely combatant branches of his Majesty's vastly inflated armies-1 need not include the .Navy—for reasons already stated there is little doubt that it is a. case of the more men the better. But when it comes to what may be called the industrial auxiliaries of the military forces of the Crown, I take leave to say that there is a limit, and a very definite one, to the number of men who can be economically removed from civilian utility for such alternative service. The auxiliary services, and by that I mean generally the non-combatant ones, are in many cases grossly overstaffed, three men or more being used where one, if properly handled, should do quite well. That is the Army way. There is a vast reservoir of potential combatants in the non-combatant arms, not because the duties of the latter are not of importance, but because their man-power is so unintelligently wasted. If some of the Army's auxiliary services were organized on the basiii of getting the most useful work out of the smallest possible number of men, large numbers might be used, as eirSunistances dictated, either to swell the neversatisfied ranks of the fighters, or,if of no real military value, could be returned to chosen civilian activities to release others who could stand the strain of fighting conditions. The motor-transport industry would be one of the first to feel the relief.
The nation is asked to organize itself .on a manpower basis. Good ! But may not the nation at least expect that the Army should be organized on a similar scale. For fighting purposes, I imagine, numbers, well-equipped, a-re nearly everything if well directed. The unit is one man, one healthy, plucky man, and, thank God, Britain still has millions of them, and they count, as soldiers, as exactly so many millions, not as half or twice their man-power value. In industrial life, however, the unit of, man-power is no more one man than is the unit of horse-power one
ordinary horse.. In civil enterprise the unit of manpower may well be one girl, two boys, half-a-dozen old ladies, half-a-washerwoman or four plumbers. The man-power twit for industrial activity is one of effort. The military numerical unit has no application. What would be thought of the coal merchant in a suburban coal yard who schemed to,make money by putting 'a lieutenant., a corporal and half-a-dozen men to wcirk.to unload a solitary coal truck, or of the haulage -contractor who sent a driver and fent or five. loaders to bring home a. few seas of flour ?
The non-combatant branches of the country's national forces are, as a matter of fact, terribly Wasteful of man-power, and the pity cif it is that the Army proper, the part that does the fighting and loses its life or its limbs for the country, is starved for men on that account amongst others. If man-power were organized reasonably within-the Government's ranks, there -would be far less need to cry for still further organization outside them. The employment of women and the substitution and dilution of labour have worked wonders in our civilian industries. Jobs of incredible diversity are now accomplished with reasonable and sufacient satisfaction by the minimum or nearly the minimum man-power. Yet the Government itself is the least economical of effort in respect of its own millions, of employees, always excepting the fighting forces, for which, as I have-endeavoured to show, there is, and pity is that it must be so, a different unit—one healthy man. And these auxiliary services include the hospital organizations in many instances and certain breaches of the.Civil Service. I know of one-hospital, or rather a huge convalescent home, where a staff of 44/0 is supposed to be necessary to look after not more than 700 invalid Tomrnies.
I do not envy the Director' of National Service his job, nor for the matter of that the Director of Anything Else his, but were I the particular_ Dictator at.
• St. Ermins I would see to it that the first lesson my own staff should learn would be that the unit of manpower is one of effort and not of so many stones of flesh and bone. It-is almost possible to conceive yet another classification., of the much-classified inhabitants of these little islands of ours. We might be classed Cl from the military point of view and yet be X, XX or XXX from the industrial standpoint. As .it is there is a tendency for the Government to view any one man as very much like any other man.
The point I would make is that the m'ilitary unit, so necessary in a combatant sense, viz., one man, is unnecessarily retained throughout. the whole of the military and much of the Governmental machinery. If it were decided to get the .utmost. possible in the way of effort out of each man in the non-combatant branches, it would do mach to conserve the civilian resources of' the country, which it must be remembered are the only lines which are Making War Loans possible. Rational service would have been a much sounder scheme than national service. If the nation is to get a true insight into v;rhat is meant by manpower, the Govdrriment should give the lead ; it should learn the meaning of the ward in terms of effort and not of numbers, and should apply the lesson to its own problems. It should learn how many men are really needed to unload an ordinaryrailway truck, and to see to it that no more are told off to do it. There is a heap of work waiting for the men left over. I know quite a lot of soldiers in a branch of the Army which shall be nameless, but which my sister has just joined, who would be real glad of a good day's work for a change.