The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-03-05

war, and particularly the utilization of the three to four million men of military age in civil life in the United Kingdom. It meant. nothing of the sort. MT. Asquith had left the draft of bill behind him for the better utilization of man-power, but after he left nothing more was heard of it. January 1917, went by, and nothing was done. went out to France to see the fighting, and found, then and la ter, our ranks always incomplete and the divisions too few to allow proper relief and rest. The Allied plan of November 1916, had been put aside, and Sir Douglas Haig had been forced by the order of the British War Cab 1net to become subordinate to Gen. era1 Nivelle. All the heavy losses of Arras were due to this order, and so was the resulting delay of the Elan ders offensive, with it's serious conse- quences. The War Cabinet of MT. Lloyd George, by imposing upon Sir Douglas Haig a certain course of &C., tion contrary to that agreed upon at the Allied conference of November 1916, incurred a grave responsibility. We'll, indeed, may the Prime Minister have suddenly embraced the idea of an Allied War Council after discover ing the cost of rejecting the advice of it's predecessor in 1916. Novelty about this wonderful discovery there was none.
 Meanwhile the drafts were always late and the divisions too few. I saw member of the present War Cabinet and told him what I thought. I had a promise from him that the strengths would be maintained, and that when October came round, and if no reace had come about, the War Cabinet would take a masculine decision and ask for 500,000 for men: Neither promise was kept. Our soft-hearted PrenierS idea of not sacrificing men was keeping them at home. This was genial idea, but it did not appeal 1 much to the men at the front each | of whom had to do the work of two men because the Prime Minister lack | ed the courage to tell the country the truth and to pass on to the public the advice which he must have received from any General Staff conscious of it's duty. The most favorable con- struction that I can place upon the Prime Ministers inaction is that he was gambling for a peace by Christ mas, but, in spite of his innumerable speeches, no peace came. The gam 1 ble, if there was a gamble, had failed. | The one question which concerns most deeply every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom is whether Sir Douglas Haig's armies will now be sufficiently reinforced to enable them to compete with the ene- my on fair terms, and my opinion Is that they will not be. These armies are greatly below establishments and this deficit must first be made food. They will be further reduced by the loss of men twice severely wounded, and by men withdrawn from ihe ar my for the shipyards. do not kr.ow what the figures are, but take a conjectural figure of 300,0o0 men as that needed to restore our establish ments.
 | We must next examine the prob able waste in 1918 from casualties and sickness. The German casualties l on all fronts in 1917, according to the best evidence that the nature of the , case admits, were between 300, ,000I and 2,20o,0o0. Judging by the past should assume our losses in the West in 1917 to have therefore been between 100000 and SOO,OOO, and the French about the same. There are also casualties in distant theatres, for which I suggest another conjectural figure of 100000, making 9oo,oOO for the past year. But as the enemy T
 bringing much larger forces against
 us in 1918, we should, I think, bud
 get for larger losses. and I consider
 that unless a provisinn of 100000
 men is made for 1918, and the eeficit
 of 300, 900 also made good, we shall
 not have done our duty by our armies,
 even so far as maintenance is con
 cerned. This leaves us with 8 total
 liability of 1,5oO, 900 men to find in
 1918 for maintenance alone.
 I have always held, and have stated
 at the time, that we should have add
 ed 30 fresh divisions to our armies
 nothing, while Germany increased her lfield armies by 100000 men. Conse- quentiy asked for 60 new divisions