Plans Citizen Army For Great Britain.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 16, 1913:
Lord Roberts Outlines Plan of National Service League to Train British Youth.
ALL TO ENTER ON EQUALITY
Promotion to be Made by Merit and Suitability, Not by Reason of Social Status.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Feb. 15.— Lord Roberts, who has long been striving heart and soul to induce the nation to adopt the principle of a national military service and urging the vital necessity that Great Britain shall strengthen her defensive forces, has opened the campaign for a big citizen army.
    In a speech at Bristol he said the first object of the National Service League, which had arranged the campaign, was to insure the safety of these islands and the maintenance of the great empire. He had no desire to stir up the aggressive or jingo spirit of the nation.
    Peace, not war, was his aim and earnest desire. What he desired to foster and develop was a more manly and more patriotic spirit. He wanted young men to realize their importance and their responsibilities as part of the nation.
    The league proposed to substitute for a system, which was full of inequalities, unfair, insufficient, and inadequate, a system which was truly democratic, in which every citizen of these islands, high or low, rich or poor, would have equal rights and equal responsibilities. It proposed that all those young men without a profession or a calling in life, who frequented the clubs, and, though made of good stuff, had through self-indulgence and want of discipline drifted into wasters, should stand shoulder to shoulder with other young men, who without discipline would become loafers and in many instances hooligans.
    The league proposed that all men should start their military training on equal terms. Promotion should be from the ranks by merit and suitability, not by reason of any man's social status. In this citizen army expenses would be reduced to a minimum in order that those who were least able to afford the financial burden might have every possible chance.