War Office’s Double Task.

If our critics—­I do not complain of legitimate criticism even at times like this—­but if they will try to imagine themselves equipped with the machinery which was possessed by the War Office at the time the war broke out, and then consider that side by side with the smooth, frictionless, and most successful dispatch of the expeditionary force [cheers] which left these shores and arrived at its destination—­I am speaking the literal truth—­without the loss of a horse or a man, [cheers,] the wastage day by day and week by week has had to be repaired in men and in material, repaired often at a moment’s notice, and it has been necessary to keep constantly in reserve, and not only in reserve, but ready for immediate use, the material to replace further wastage as days and weeks rolled on—­if you remember that that was the primary call on the War Office, and that side by side with that they had to provide for recruits in these few weeks of no less than 430,000 men, he will be a very censorious, and, I venture to say, a very unpatriotic, critic who would make much of small difficulties and friction and who would not recognize that in a great emergency this department has played a worthy part. [Cheers.] My tenure at the War Office was a brief one, but no one who has ever had the honor to preside over that department can possibly exaggerate the degree of efficiency to which it has been brought under the administration of recent years.  Everything, as the experience of this war has shown, was foreseen and provided for in advance with the single exception of the necessity of this enormous increase in our regular forces.

Steps for Dealing with Recruits.

What provision has been made for dealing with this influx of recruits?  In the first place, and I think very wisely, my noble friend the Secretary of State for War appealed for the assistance of the county associations, which rendered such great and patriotic services in connection with the territorial forces.  The great bulk of these county associations have responded to the call and enormously facilitated the work of providing for this large body of new recruits.  Next, he, in conjunction with his advisers, has largely multiplied, and is continuing to multiply, the various training centres.  There has been—­unfortunately, no one can deny that there has been—­a congestion of men ready and willing to recruit and actually enlisting at particular places which has produced, for the moment at any rate, a certain amount of discomfort and a certain amount of difficulty in the provision of food and all the other requirements of such a body.  But in that connection I should like, although I think the difficulty is now being almost got over, to make an appeal strongly to local authorities—­county councils, town councils, urban and rural district councils—­that when a situation of this kind arises in consequence of a national necessity they should show themselves—­and I am sure