Therefore, I have to submit to Parliament the totals for increasing, and increasing very materially, the reserves which will be available for reinforcing our armies in the field during this prolonged battle, upon which we are only just entering. I will now give roughly some of the proposals we intend to make in order to increase the number of men available.
We already have raised for armed forces during the first quarter of the year more than the quarter's proportion of the original number of men which it was estimated was the minimum required for the present year. We are also effecting a very strict comb-out of some of the essential industries. Very large levies have been taken from munition works. They will amount, I think, to something like 100,000 grade 1 men.
New Call on the Miners
That has been done already this year, and it will, of course, involve the utilization of other labor to a very large extent in munition works. A call for 500,000 has been made already on the coal industry, and these men have been rapidly recruited. I regret to say that military needs will necessitate the calling up of another 150,000 men from this industry. These men can be spared, we are convinced, after entering into the matter very carefully, without endangering the essential output of coal for national industries.
No one is likely to forget the fine response made by the miners at the beginning of the war, or the splendid part they have taken in hundreds of battles since then. They have been loyal in meeting the present demand of 50,000 men, and I am confident they would meet a further call upon them in the same spirit, in view of this great national emergency under which we are making it. The transport services also have been called upon to release the greatest possible number of fit men.
Combing Out Civil Service Under 25
Further calls are to be made upon the civil service. I do not think it is realized how much the civil service has done already. On one hand, it has had to release a large number of men for the army, and, on the other, it has to meet and is meeting the increased strain of work. But even at the risk of some dislocation we must call upon it to do more, and a clean cut of young, fit men must be made.
It is proposed that no fit men below the age of 25 should be retained. That is the clean-out. We comb out beyond that. I shall explain it later. It is proposed that it should be applied to other industries as well.
When we are adding to the age and when we are extending the military age, it should not be said that there are fit young men of 25 who are employed in the various industries of the country. This will bring the civil service into line, and on a general level, so far as a clean-out is concerned, with the munitions industries.
Under an act passed in January of this year, we are issuing orders canceling all occupational exemptions by age blocks in specified occupations. That is the clean-out. The first of these orders is being laid on the table in the House today and other orders of the same power will follow.