That is a thing for which we can say "Thanks be to God". I agree we are fortunate in that, but from a purely military point of view we are unfortunate. In everything but practical experience, in the theory of war, on the academic side, in the study of war, in the satisfactory results as shown by comprehensive courses not only here but in officers' academies abroad, I think we can be perfectly satisfied that the standard of knowledge and efficiency of our officers is peculiarly high. The Army is a kind of organisation that lives its life behind bars and is not very much seen in the public eye, except on a couple of occasions every year. It is due to them to say that about them. There is very little room for a slacker, very little room for a shirker. The bad boy in a small Army is very quickly found out and we are fortunate in having so few bad boys.
With regard to other "lines" in the Army, the N.C.O. line is a fairly steady one. When the short-term attestation period has expired, it is more or less unusual or exceptional for a N.C.O. to be anxious for his discharge and to leave the Army. We have the advantage of having, in the main, N.C.O.s of long service. Most of the N.C.O.s in the term of service are senior men, and when their attestation period is up they reattest.
We have the balance on the other side with regard to privates. The private's job is certainly not what you would regard as one of the aristocratic jobs of ordinary life. A man joins the Army as a private, perhaps because he is unemployed, or perhaps because he has a taste for soldiering. A great number of privates, at the end of their period, be it three years or longer, do take their discharge. That is all to the good. If you have a big turnover of privates you are building up your first line reserve all the time with trained men and if you can cash in your privates to a great extent every third or fourth year you are mounting up the number of trained men in the country because the bulk of them go on the reserve for a further long term period.
We had a recruiting campaign opened some weeks ago. The returns have been very satisfactory. The returns up to a couple of weeks ago have exceeded the most optimistic figure put on the recruiting campaign. We have not done it in a very noisy way. We have not done it through immense figure posters on the hoardings. We have done it through the daily and provincial Press. The returns have been very, very satisfactory. Senator Hawkins asked me for the return to date. I am not giving him a firm figure but I am giving what I think is within five or ten of the figure up to yesterday morning, when I say we had something like 895.
When people are coming forward fairly freely an army becomes more and more selective. If the recruits are coming forward in small numbers you cannot afford to be very selective on the educational standard, even on the physical standard. You have to let all those standards down a little bit if there is a small number of recruits presenting themselves. If there is a large number presenting themselves, then you can be more selective and look for a higher standard all round. I am happy to report to the Seanad that we were in a position to be peculiarly selective, more selective than we have been for the best part of 20 years. The standard of recruit we have got in is young and intelligent, physically, a very high standard, educationally, a good standard. We would have been happy to keep many of the trained men who have gone out. They have not gone out in the sense of being completely separated and divorced from the Army. They have gone on to the first line reserve.
With regard to armaments and the supply side of the Army, that is not an easy matter and will never again be an easy matter in any country which is not in a position to produce its own supplies. We are in the position of a small country, producing nothing in the way of ammunition or armaments, having to look outside our own shores for both ammunition and armaments, endeavouring to purchase in a world that is suffering from war nerves, where the world policy is one of conscription. Every country is looking for more and more armaments and practically every country in the world is in one or other of the great world combinations. We are an island outside that great world, standing aloof from one great combination or the other, producing nothing in the way of armaments, producing nothing in the way of ammunition, in the position of a buyer on a market where the supply does not meet the demand, the only recommendation we have being the good money in our hands.
We might be in a completely hopeless position in that situation and there were times, even in my period of office, when I was inclined to get rather pessimistic with regard to the supplies of arms and armaments, and at times, when, like anybody else, my liver might not be functioning as well as on other days, I would be inclined to say to myself: "What is the good of having soldiers if you cannot even put a pop-gun into their hands"? Fortunately that did not work out to be the situation in practice. Britain was satisfied that, neutral or belligerent, our intention was to hold this territory against anybody that might come to invade us, and I am glad to say we have got in reasonable amounts the supplies that we require. That is one thing that it is gratifying to report.
Another matter that has to be taken into consideration is that, fortunately, we have never fired a shot in anger and we have been buying our materials right down along the line since the beginning of the Army. Certain armaments and certain mechanical vehicles of war, of course, get worn out by disuse but, in the main, we have been accumulating year after year, with the exception of ammunition, which is an expendable commodity and which has been used in practice training and various forms of manoeuvres from year to year. The armament position generally and the supply position generally is far from being unhealthy.
Senator Hawkins also referred to the position of the F.C.A. We have not conscription in this country and—it may be an unwise thing for a Minister for Defence to say, but I have the reputation of being normally unwise—I would go further and say that I hope we will never have to have conscription in this country. The fact of the matter is that we have not got it. It is unlikely that we ever will have it. In that situation people may talk with regard to Army strength. Army strength is not decided by figures in an Estimate or the ambitions or desires of any individual. Army strength is decided by the number of recruits, in a free country, without conscription, that knock at the barrack gate and ask to be taken in. That means that in practice the Army is limited to a certain strength, talking in world terms relatively a very small strength and, if we are to keep ourselves in a position of preparedness, then we cannot look to the strength of a whole-time standing Army; we must look to the strength of the expertness and high specialist efficiency of a tiny standing Army reinforced, in the first place, by a first line reserve and, to the greatest extent possible, by a second line reserve, namely, the F.C.A.
I referred to the first line reserve. The strength of the reserve depends on the rapidity of the turnover of trained soldiers. The strength of the next reserve, namely, the F.C.A., depends on the extent to which we and the Army in particular, show an interest in that particular body of men. Considerable thought, considerable time, and considerable investigation have been given to the question how best to make that force a successful force. The Army people who investigated it came to the conclusion that they were not heretofore getting sufficient assistance from regular personnel, that it required here and there the presence of regular officers and regular N.C.O.s to keep things up to the maximum point of interest. We are proposing to extend the assistance from the Regular Army to the F.C.A. by approximately 300 officers and the same number of N.C.O.s.
With regard to training facilities, one of the deficiencies in connection with the F.C.A. was that you had an immense force in numbers but you had little more than 10 or 11 per cent. of that great number turning up for annual training, even over a period of a number of years. In their own locality the amount of training they can get does not go very far beyond the rifle. If they do not turn up for annual training, then their training is very limited. It is hoped to provide inducements of one kind and another that will make it likely that a higher percentage will turn up for training each year.
Training in the past was done only through three months each year, three of the most ideal and suitable months, but there was a great number of members of the F.C.A. who, for one reason or another, harvesting operations, and so on, could not get off during those three summer months. We are endeavouring to arrange that training will be carried out through at least ten months of the year, if not the whole 12, so that any time these people are free and available for training they can get that training.
Senator Hawkins further asked me with regard to the position of neutrality —he took it for granted that we would be neutral. I do not know. I think a person in my position who puts himself in the position of being a prophet is rather unwise because a prophet can be contradicted flatly and it takes only time to prove who is right and who is wrong. But, the constitutional position of this country is such that we can only be engaged in war through the vote of Parliament. In the past we were neutral and we were very, very fortunate to be able to be neutral. There was a particular world line-up at that time.
If we were not neutral then it would be a matter of which side we would be on. In the world line-up we have at the moment, my opinion is that if we were not neutral there would be no question as to which side we would be on. The whole liberty-loving tradition of the people, the religion of the vast majority of the people and our conception of man's rights would seem to indicate which side we would be on if we were not neutral. The next step from that is to view the position of our country, a mutilated country with portion of it cut away and occupied by the forces of a nation with which we would be allied directly or indirectly if we stood against the force coming from the other side of Europe which we detest. Reasonable men inside and outside the country would realise that it would be impossible to expect people of any country with any drop of national spirit in their veins to ally themselves in almost any circumstances with a power that is occupying by force portion of their country. When the next war comes, for all I know, these circumstances and conditions may be changed. I can speak only in regard to the present. No Senator would expect me to speak in regard to the future, but if things remain in the future as they are at present then we must work as an individual country alone and do the best we can. I do not think any Senator would ask me to go further than that.
Senator Ó Buachalla appears to be concerned with the geographical soldier. That is a strange bird, a soldier who is to be recruited from one place, trained in that place and maintained in that place. The Irish-speaking battalion, recruited mainly from Connemara, is stationed most of the time in Galway, but they do the initial training of every soldier, namely three months' training in the recruiting depot in the Curragh. Our Army is too small, our instructors are too few and our facilities are too limited to have training depots all round the place in each battalion. It is easy enough to shove a man into uniform and a pair of heavy brown boots and call him a soldier; he is not a soldier unless he does his initial training. We have only one place where we can give that initial training and that is the recruiting depot at the Curragh. After he has finished his three months training he goes to the appropriate battalion.
