The Washington herald., 1916-04-09
BRITISH CABINET FEARFUL
OF CLAMOR FOR DICTATOR

mischief as a score of mediocrities. Let
us hnd him and give him trial. and
IL he doesn't suit we viii find an
other, and so on urtil we get the right
one. And then Parliament must pass
an open vote Of credit for any amount
which may be required and forthwith
adjourn sine die"
Mr.. Bottomly makes the search for
the man" more difficult by naming,
on his executive council to assist the
dictator, Kitchener. Fisher. Sir Percy
Scott, Sir Henry Dslziel. Lloyd George,
F. e. Smith. Bonar Law and Asquith.
This list includes some OF the men
named by rumor for the leadership of
the empire in the forthcoming recon
struction, and the only prominent hg-
ures not in II are Lord Derby, Carson.
Lord Curzon, Northcliffe, and Winston
Churchill
Leo j. Maxse, editor of the National
Review. a powerful Tory political
monthly, advocates Kitchener for su-
preme control. He suggests that Par
lament abdicate in Kitchener's favor
until October /, when IL he has failed
to make good he can be ousted. The
man in the street, however. has not
made up his mind. and II is this that
keeps the government In office. He
viii, nine times out of ten, hotly de-
clare that the government has mud
times out of ten he Is quite unable
to suggest a man, or a group of men,
to put in its place.
Cause of Discomfort. -.-
The most serious cause of discomfort,
of course. is the failure of the gov
eminent to win victories. But this
feeling is rather subconscious, for, put
in that way, every one realizes that
1t is unreasonable, and no criticism
centers on the particular issues which
will now be considered.
Most serious is the recruiting tangle,
because 1t vitality affects a consider
able part of the population, and the
humblest citizen knows from his own
experience that 1t has been muddled
When the Derby scheme was carried
out last autumn, married and single
men alike were assured by the can
vassers that II they enlisted under the
group system they would receive bet
ter treatment than IL they refused to
| enlist and waited for conscription.
! Both Asquith and Lord Derby, direc-
tor general of recruiting, made solemn
pledges, In order to induce the re-
luctant married men to join. that they
would not be called up until single
slackers" had been forced into the
army, provided the number of single
4
Lord Derby's report showed 651. 900
single men who had not attested. and
accordingly bill conscripting unat-
tested single men was passed. Mean
while, the single men who had at
tested were rapidly called to the
colors, and notices have already been
posted summonIng. on April Z, all at
| tested married men up to the age Of
| thirty-ive. Before the end of April
the last group. that of married men
Of forty, will have been enrolled in the
army.
A prodigious howl has arisen from
scores of thousands of attested mar
ried men. They claim that Lord
Derby's pledge that single men must
go first has not been kept, and point
to hundreds of thousands of single
men who are engaged in starred" oc-
cupations or who have obtained ex-
emption on any one of a hundred
grounds from military tribunals. II
! has been the starring" system, as
close observers predicted from the
start. that made all the trouble The
board OF trade and scores of other or
ganizations were given power to "re-
serve" certain occupations the workers
in which were held to be doing more
good where they were than they could
do in the army. Munitions workers,
coal miners, sailors. public employees
and railway men of course obtained
exemption, but so did agricultural la
borers, workers on all kinds of export
goods, including luxuries, and more
than $50 trades were starred" many
of which seem to have little or moth
ing to do with the war.
| This army of reserved men, single
and married, is so large that the num-
ber of single conscripts obtained has
been extremely small, and the elderly
attested married men, most of whom
believed they would never be calId up,
are convinced that they have been
tricked and betrayed. The government
is alrady drastically revising the lists
Of reserved trades and releasing singl
men for the army, and is seeking to
replace able-bodied single men of mill
itary age who are engaged in Impor-
tant work by elderly or unit men or
by women. But the organization for
dealing with the problem is defective,
and every attested married man, II
he looks about him, sees cases of in
Justice or apparent favoritisn Heaven
help the government" said a member
of Parliament to me, 'in any district
where the attested men have a chance
to vote before they are whIsked into
the ARMY" -,
Air Issue Vital.
| NliC Oil issue Is a burning one,
People cannot understand why Zeppe-
Inns are allowed to roam about the
country apparently at will, and why
the government is helpless either to
bring them down or to retaliate in
kind on the Germans. Arguments that
the Zeppelins are of no military i'm
portance, that not enough guns can be
provided for defense because they are
needed in France, that the best aero
lplane pilots must be at the front and
not held back to protect civilians
sound convincing in Parliament; and !
believe the government is doing all II
can, but cool reasoning aud logic
don't go far in a city, town. or vii
lage which has seen death raining on
helpless women and children from the
clouds, watched the removal of man
gled bodies, and been reminded daily
of the tragedies by the sight of wreck
ed homes. Pemberton-Billing won his
seat on the Zeppelin issue, and he did
not use single argument against the
government that would convince a
man whose feelings had not been
wrought upon.
Discomfort in the Midlands with the
working of the munitions act con-
tinues. Men feel that the government
has turned them into serfs, working
under compulsion of the state for the