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142 consist of married men—seventy-five per cent.!—men who are the stable backbone of the country, who have assumed the responsibilities of citizenship, and whose proper place, if in the line at all, is where our shores are violated while the younger men are at the front. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a startling fact that out of 1,200,000 members of Kitchener's Army, 900,000 are married men, only 300,000 of them being without family ties and obligations. ["Shame."] Aye, it is not only a shame; it is a scandal of a terrible character when you reflect what it means to the nation. If you assume—as you are entitled to do—that every one of these men has two or three persons dependent upon him, each of whom will have to be provided for out of the separation allowance, you get something like three-quarters of a million pounds a week paid to support the wives and dependents of the men who ought to be supporting them themselves, while the more active, free, younger men ought to be doing the fighting work abroad. [Cheers and cries of "Cowards."] I don't care to look at the matter from the point of view of what it is going to cost us for pensions for the families of these patriotic married men who may never come back from the field, but it were infinitely preferable that the men who fight for us should be those who have not too many depending upon them in the homeland. What I want to say is this: I don't profess to know any Cabinet secrets, but I pledge myself to this—that this state of things is not going to continue many weeks longer. If the single men of the country do not come forward in larger numbers than they are doing, it will not be many weeks before, by Act of Parliament, or the operation of the common law of the land, they will be compelled to go and do that which it ought to be their very proudest privilege to rush to do of their own accord. [Loud and prolonged cheers.]

Ladies and gentlemen, I throw out this suggestion—that Lord Kitchener should at once announce the exact number of further men he requires; that he should give a time-limit to the Government, and that, if at the expiration of that time the whole new Army is not ready, then, by the operation of law, every man capable of bearing arms—and the single ones in preference—should be compelled to do their duty to their country as men in other countries are doing. It is mainly owing to lack of appreciation of facts, and from lack of proper campaigning and recruiting, that our men are failing to come forward to-day [Cheers.] But I do not forget that there may be sinister