ought to
imitate them. We ought to study some subject hard, argue all round it,
and then tell the world just how we think it ought to be solved. I
thought we might begin on the problem of unemployment...."

"Good Lord, do you think we can solve that!" Ninian exclaimed.

"No, but we might find a means of palliating it. My own notion...."

"I thought you had some scheme in your skull, Roger!" said Gilbert.
"Let's have it!"

"Well, it's rather raw in my mind at present, but my idea is that the
way to mitigate the problem of unemployment, perhaps solve it, is to
join it on to the problem of defence. Supposing we decided to create a
big army ... and we shall need one sooner or later with all these
ententes and alliances we're forming ... the problem would be to form it
without dislocating the industrial system. My idea is to make it
compulsory for every man to undergo military training, about a couple of
months every year, and call the men up to the camp in times of trade
depression. You wouldn't have to call them all up at once ... trades
aren't all slack at the same time ... and you'd arrange the period of
training as far as possible to fit in with the slack time in each job. I
mean, people who are employed in gasworks could easily be trained in the
summer without dislocating the gas industry ... colliers, too, and
people like that ... and men who are slack in the winter, like builders'
men, could be trained in the winter. That's my idea roughly. There'd be
training going on all the year round, and of course you could vary the
duration of the period of training ... never less than two months, but
longer if trade were badly depressed. You'd save a lot of misery that
way ... you'd keep your men fit and fed and their homes going ... and
you'd have the nucleus of a large army. I don't see why we shouldn't
bring the Board of Education in. If we were to raise the school age to
sixteen, and then make it compulsory for every boy to go into a cadet
corps or something of the sort for a couple of years, you'd relieve the
pressure on the labour market at that end enormously, and you'd make the
job of getting the army ready much easier in case of emergency. A couple
of years' training to begin with, followed by a couple of months'
further training every year, would make all the difference in the world
to us militarily, and it would do away, largely, with the unemployed!"

"How about apprentices?" said Gilbert. "If you raise the sc