fighting for us. [Cheers.] And last, but not least, we shall do all that we can to help the cause of recruiting. [Hear, hear.]
I am glad to know that I have the honour of addressing a considerable number of young men who have joined the Nottingham City Battalion. [Cheers.] But unless I am misinformed you would like to have a few more to join you. [Hear, hear, and cheers.] I hope one of the results of this evening's meeting may be to double the present force. [Hear, hear, and cheers.] The response that has been made to Lord Kitchener's appeal has been a splendid response. [Hear, hear.] It is a wonderful thing that in little more than a month half a million of men have come forward to serve their country. [Cheers.]
In one day we took 35,000 men, which represents about the state of recruiting for the whole of a normal year. That is a wonderful performance! That sudden outburst of recruiting came just at a moment when things were not going well for us, and when, therefore, the young men of this country felt it was their duty to come forward and stand by us.
But don't let us suppose that this recruiting problem is by any means over. We have got not only to put these armies into the field, but to keep them there, and we know what a terrible thing the wastage of an army is from wounds and other causes during a long campaign. I am told that for every man you wish to keep in the field you ought to be recruiting and training two men in order to keep the army full if you expect these operations to last for a long time.
There is another point to which I would call your attention. I feel sure that in this great enterprise the War Office, which has undergone a tremendous strain during the last few weeks, will be glad to rely upon the assistance of local bodies. Local authorities obviously must know a good deal more about local details than people at headquarters, and I am convinced that the assistance which can be given to the War Office at such a juncture as this—for example, by territorial associations, which now cover the whole country, and by such bodies as local councils of all kinds—that assistance is simply invaluable. I am sure that that assistance will be forthcoming, and forth- coming ungrudgingly.
This struggle is going to be a protracted one. How long, I do not suppose any one knows. We all desire it to be short, but if we wish it to be short we must push it as hard as we can all the time. [Cheers.]
