If Lord Kitchener is not to be held primarily responsible for the delay in providing war material, just as little is he to be blamed for the methods of recruiting. For he had to take what the politicians told him. He had to accept their sagacious views of what the people would stand; of 'what they would never stand'; of what 'from the House of Commons' standpoint' was practicable or impracticable. Lord Kitchener wanted men. During August and September he wanted them at once--without a moment's delay. Obviously the right plan was to ask in a loud voice who would volunteer; to take as many of these as it was possible to house, clothe, feed, and train; then to sit down quietly and consider how many more were likely to be wanted, at what dates, and how best they could be got. But as regards the first quarter of a million or so, which there were means for training at once, there was only one way--to call loudly for volunteers. The case was one of desperate urgency, and as things then stood, it would have been the merest pedantry to delay matters until a system, for which not even a scheme or skeleton existed before the emergency arose, had been devised. The rough and ready {365} method of calling out loudly was open to many objections on the score both of justice and efficiency, but the all-important thing was to save time. [Sidenote: NEED FOR A SYSTEM] Presumably, by and by, when the first rush was over, the Cabinet did sit down round a table to talk things over. We may surmise the character of the conversation which was then poured into Lord Kitchener's ears--how England would never stand this or that; how no freeborn Englishman--especially north of the Humber and the Trent,[1] whence the Liberal party drew its chief support--would tolerate being tapped on the shoulder and told to his face by Government what his duty was; how much less would he stand being coerced by Government into doing it; how he must be tapped on the shoulder and told by other people; how he must be coerced by other people; how pressure must be put on by private persons--employers by threats of dismissal--young females of good, bad, and indifferent character by blandishments and disdain. The fear of starvation for the freeborn Englishman and his family--at that time a real and present danger with many minds--or the shame of receiving a white feather, were the forces by which England and the Empire were to be saved at this time of trial. Moreover, would it not lead to every kind of evil if, at this juncture, the country were to become annoyed with the Government? Better surely that it should become annoyed with any one rather than the Government, whose patriotic duty, therefore, was to avoid unpopularity with more devoted vigilance than heretofore, if such a thing were possible.