Territorial Army (Recruitment)

Part of Orders of the Day — Army Estimates, 1950–51 – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 March 1950.

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Photo of Mr Evelyn Strachey Mr Evelyn Strachey , Dundee West 12:00, 20 March 1950

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's figures, but that is the point at issue. With all our defects as a country—and he and I can point them out, though some of them are being remedied—is it or is it not worth defending? I put it to him that it is. That is the simple issue.

His last point was most important. He suggested that there was a choice be-between Socialism and defence. I put it to him that a Socialist economy—an economic system in so far as it is planned—is in a better and not a worse position to maintain defence expenditure. I think hon. Members opposite will find that heavy defence expenditure such as we have to undertake today is a grievous burden on any kind of economic system.

There cannot be any doubt about that. but I am sure that a planned economic system, in so far as it is socialised, is in a very much better position to bear that heavy burden than a laissez faire economy.

The speech of the hon. Member for Ealing, South, was particularly thoughtful. I have already referred to his remarks about publicity. He made other interesting points. For example, he mentioned appeals to large firms to promote Territorial Army recruiting. I was glad that he stressed the trade union aspect of that. I agree with him that this is probably a key to that question. Again on publicity, I thought that he was probably right in saying that we could learn something from the type of publicity used by the Coal Board, by which they have built up the social standing, as it were, and the prestige of that industry most successfully, in that a good deal of what we might call "build-up"—the background type of publicity—is a preparation to the direct appeal to the individual man.

The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Redmayne) made another series of interesting points, but I thought that he was perhaps a little hard on the military authorities in 1945, because they did have their difficulties and limitations in the reconstitution of the Territorial Army. If they were sometimes unable to equip that Army in the early days with new equipment, it was not altogether unnatural or difficult to understand. I have dealt with the point about the means of enforcing the training notice.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman raised an issue of great substance when he said that he did not consider that the conception of a Territorial Army in which there would be a non-voluntary element and in which the National Service man on the completion of his National Service would have an obligation for part-time service in the Territorial Army, was something on which there would be any fundamental disagreement between us. We are not in disagreement. We think that, whatever in the end the period of National Service may be, and even if it is possible, as we should all hope, that the period of National Service with the Colours can be greatly reduced, yet the conception of universal National Service with the Reserve Army through the mechanism of the Territorial Army may be a very valuable one indeed.

The hon. Member adjured us—this was somewhere near his phrase—to look the dreadful possibility of a new war in the face. I think we have to do that, because doing it is the best way and the best hope of avoiding it. We do think that, in building up that universal national Reserve Army, with, of course, its indispensable voluntary element and with the obligation for part-time training after the National Service period, we are making the best contribution we can towards looking that possibility in the face and therefore helping to avoid it.