"Insidious Doctrine"

While British taxpayers were aching last week over the simple fact that increased armaments must be paid for (see above), Britain's Secretary of War. swank young Alfred Duff Cooper, jumped from the desk on which he keeps a mask of his famed actress wife, the former Lady Diana Manners, hustled down to Manchester. There he spoke his mind about the leaders of the Established Church of England in Manchester's Free Trade Hall.

Almost as well groomed as Foreign Secretary Eden, War Secretary Duff Cooper spoils the effect of the most expensive Savile Row tailoring by a nervous habit of shoving both hands through the armholes of his vest while speaking, turning fiery red when excited.

Lobster-pink on the platform last week he cried:

"I am told that the insidious doctrine of pacifism is rapidly spreading in Britain and that it is partly responsible for the failure of recruiting. This doctrine is due to loose thinking, a lack of logic and in ability to face facts. . . . The leaders of the Church should say boldly that it is the duty of a man to defend his country and the ideals in which he has been brought up, and that in the whole history of Christianity there were no finer Christian heroes than soldiers.

"Today the world faces terrible times. The European situation is graver than it was in 1914 and the stakes are higher. Today our regular army is 21 battalions smaller than in 1914, and additionally is short 12,000 men, while the territorials are 40,000 under their strength, which on paper is 182,000 men."

No joke to Britain's General Staff is the failure of the current recruiting campaign, because modern armies are twice as complex as those of 1914, it takes twice as long to train an efficient soldier. Since the announcement of new plans to mechanize the British cavalry, troopers have been scratching their heads over engine diagrams, the intricacies of caterpillar treads and short-wave wireless. Even the infantry has had to struggle with such new devices as the Boys rifle, a ponderous blunderbuss that weighs 35 lb., fires a 5-in. cartridge through the steel walls of tanks.

Recruiting for the territorials (Britain's National Guard) is even more serious. Short on troops to be sent to India and Egypt, the General Staff has decreed that practically all territorial regiments be immediately converted into antiaircraft battalions, thus liberating regular army detachments for service abroad. Bank clerks and stockjobbers, drilling once a week, are expected to master the complexities of high-angle range tables, multiple machine guns, acoustic range finders.

Secretary Duff Cooper was doing his best to attract recruits into the service last week. The base pay of the British soldier has been raised from 27-c- to 50-c- a day about 2/3 as much as the U. S. buck private.' If his ability to polish boots and clean pipes wins him a job as an officer's servant, he can count on another $5 a month, and if he stays in the army long enough to win the stripes, red sash and silver-headed cane of a sergeant, he can earn more than $17.50 a week.

For the lighter-minded, the War Office has established in the main recruiting depot at Great Scotland Yard a line of male mannequins. These stalwart young men are exhibited in the full dress uniforms of a dozen famed regiments. A bashful recruit can shuffle about and decide for himself whether he would look better in the gaudy stockings of the Gordon Highlanders, the befrogged jackets of the Royal Horse Artillery, the white-plumed bearskin of the Royal Scots Greys, the brass helmets of the Royal Dragoons. Those who choose humbler regiments are handed new undress or "walking out'' uniforms that make them look almost as spruce as Guardsmen.

With great pride last week the War Office pointed to all the home comforts of its latest troopship, H. M. S. Dilwara. Intended for ferrying men to India and Egypt, it is completely air-conditioned, contains a cinema and game room and as a special attraction a gaudy nursery for the children of married soldiers. All the hobby horses carry the blanket insignia of famed Indian cavalry regiments.

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