1 Bailey. Irish Recruiting
Private 3 Earlsfort Terrace
Dublin. 22 Dec. 15 My dear Carson. I read your speech
last night with much
interest. It seems to me that
recruiting has been
killed in Ireland by
the policy adopted by
the government. It is
the fashion to say that
Ireland has done "splendidly" 2
when the truth is that in all
but the Unionist districts of Ulster
it has done very badly. Irish soldiers have fought
magnificently but there are
very few of them & as compared
with the rest of the British
Isles Ireland is very
backward indeed in recruiting. Birmingham on the last
Saturday of Lord Derby's
campaign enlisted more
men than all Ireland
did in the six months of
Lord Wimborne's campaign. Now practically no
recruits are coming
forward in Ireland. There
have been about 10,000
got in 6 or 7 weeks since
Lord Wimborne commenced
operations but 50,000
were asked for - and
50,000 was immensely
under the proper propertion
as measured by England
& Scotland. It would be
interesting to find out
on what principle or
basis the demand was 3
limited to 50,000 for Ireland.
On the British analogy it
should have been 200,000,
at least. In the South &
Midlands of Ireland it is
now becoming the practice for

young men of military age
to form hands sworn not to
Enlist and the Irish (Sinn
Fein) Volunteers are gaining
large numbers of recruits owing
to the belief that the government
will not dare to apply
compulsion to them. It would be well to
get out the figures of recruiting
in Ireland according to Counties
& Provinces. Ulster has done
very much better than South & West. 4 Every anti recruiting
influence has been
given free play in
Ireland & ahost of
papers bitterly hostile
to England are allowed
to circulate unrestricted
all over the country. Ever sincerely yours W.T. Bailey