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fever, and England seems in danger of taking it in an aggravated form. We ourselves pretend to have no military knowledge, and shall drag our readers into no administrative details, but propose only to point out certain political and social aspects of the question, with which, as involving matters of principle, civilians are perhaps fitter to deal than soldiers. We are not dogmatic advocates of the views for which we insist upon a hearing; we only desire to state those views strongly, because, while the current of public opinion is running so strongly in an opposite direction, they are in danger of being wholly overlooked. We do not aspire to discuss the entire question, nor to state the whole truth; but simply to urge a very relevant and much neglected truth.

"Universal military service," writes M. de Laveleye in the Fortnightly Review, "is suitable for democratic nations, witness all the republics of antiquity. It forms an army that is truly patriotic, it braces character, combats that softness which is gaining on us, prepares an immense force without large expense, and inculcates discipline and obedience, qualities worthy of little esteem under a despotic government, but indispensable under a free government. The army must become the adult school for every citizen. It was thus that Germany recovered her valour and

strength."

This is the popular cry now, echoed from a thousand tongues, favoured by men of "advanced opinions," and advocated by journals which unquestionably regard themselves as friends both of progress and of peace. "Let every citizen be called upon to serve his country in the ranks of the army, and be so trained that he can serve it well. Let every youth, whatever his rank or destined occupation, pass at least one or two years in soldiering before he settles down to his regular work in life. Make the whole nation a potential army, and the country a potential camp. Let us no longer have our military forces recruited by voluntary action, or from one class, and no longer have them officered exclusively by the upper and wealthier ranks. By this means patriotism will be fostered, and England will be made secure. This system has made Prussia great and irresistible. Let it restore greatness and influence to Great Britain." Such is the favourite fancy of the hour; and the events now passing on the Continent have given it temporary vogue. But is it sound or wise?

It would be all very well, and might probably be necessary, were war to be the normal condition of Europe, or even constant liability to war. It was necessary among the republics and monarchies of antiquity, because then the whole history of States was the record of a perpetual struggle for existence or aggrandisement. Territory was almost the only recognised source or form of national wealth; supremacy over neighbours the only grandeur dreamed of; skill in arms, or success in war, the main if not the only avenue to fame

or power. Then a state of hostilities was the rule, intervals of peace the exception. Every citizen was certain to be called sooner or later to the field; every citizen, therefore, must be trained to appear there with credit and efficiency. The same thing might be advisable now, if constant readiness to fight and established security to win were to be the tenure on which alone freedom and independence could be held ;-if nations, industrious, fair-minded, pacific, and unaggressive, were liable at any moment to be called upon to stand sword in hand in defence of their property or their rights against barbarian hordes or brigand conquerors ;—and if the unprovoked assaults to which we were liable, or the rational and binding engagements we might have entered into, were such as a moderately powerful professional force (such as we must always maintain) would be inadequate to meet. But it is simply idle to argue the exigencies and obligations of the nineteenth century by reference to the States of antiquity, when fighting was the business, and almost the amusement, of mankind; when there was little industry or commerce which war could interrupt or disorganize; when civilization was in its infancy, and national interests and organization were comparatively simple and narrow. What, in the last resort, are armies now needed for? Simply to enable each nation to expand and deploy itself; to develop its industry, its resources, its special form of life, undisturbed by violence from without; and, at times, to assist allied nations, when menaced, to maintain a like scope for their development. For anything distinct from these objects, it is a police, not an army, that we need. For anything beyond these objects, if armies are required, it is for crime. Now these objects necessitate, no doubt, an army-but not a nation in arms.

It is true that the experience of the present generation, and the drama that is now enacting just beyond our shores are not, at first sight, encouraging to hopes of future peace. The last sixteen years have shown us four or five of the bloodiest and most obstinate wars in all history. But, if looked at more closely, perhaps, the analysis might be more reassuring than the first impression. These wars were nearly all the legacies of old controversies, the bad residuum of old traditions, the consequences of an attempt to preserve "an unstable equilibrium in Europe to perpetuate what should never have existed. The American war was an internal struggle, to decide which of two powerful elements in the nation should have the upper hand. The Crimean war was fought partly to deliver Europe, once for all, from the incubus of Russian influence, partly to maintain that "unstable equilibrium" which had been bequeathed to us by our fathers, and from the superstitions connected with which we had not yet freed our minds. The Italian war of 1859 was waged to

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liberate Italy from Austrian supremacy—again an evil inheritance from the past. The war of 1866 was an indispensable preliminary towards the realisation of a grand national idea that of German unity. The duel between France and Germany was, at the outset, a contest for military superiority, inaugurated by a dynasty imbued with hereditary notions of conquest, and has now deepened into a national conflict for something falsely called "existence." But each of these wars has left behind it among those engaged an increasing distaste, and even horror, for such bloodshed and barbarism, and each of them has gone far to settle and to close a controversy that required to be laid to rest. In spite, therefore, of all that is discouraging in the present, we still cling confidently to the hope that, with the final extinction of the Buonapartes and their bad traditions, with the union of dissevered fragments of nationalities that yearned to come together, with the overthrow of alien and hated dominations, and with the gradual abandonment of old political and diplomatic theories that will not bear the light of reason, real struggles for national rights, national life, national development—objects worth fighting for cum toto corpore regni-will grow rarer and rarer as the world goes on.

But even if these general views be deemed too sanguine, and we confine our views to England only-as for the purposes of our present argument we ought to do-the proposal to substitute a popular for a professional army implies, not only an enormous overprovision for all probable or calculable exigencies, but quite the wrong sort of provision. Let us look for a moment at the simple, salient facts of the case. Our position and our requirements are in two essential points altogether different from those of other European nations. We are insular; they are continental. Their country and possessions lie at home, and in a ring fence; our empire and territory are scattered over the world, for the most part at a great distance from our shores, and a great part is held by us under a very peculiar tenure. Now a popular army, organized like that of Prussia, -a system which trains the whole population to arms, and forces every man to pass some time in actual service in the ranks, and to be liable to future service on emergencies,—is admirably calculated for defensive warfare, and must make a nation virtually unconquerable and nearly unassailable at home. Applied to Great Britain, it would give us a permanent defensive force on foot of (say) 300,000 men, capable of being raised at once, in case of necessity, to three times that strength. But our navy is our defensive force: it is our first line of fortresses, our outlying army: it ought always to be maintained in invulnerable condition; and our Government or our Parliament must be strangely culpable if it ever fails to be so. It

is, therefore, only in case of that outer bulwark being forced, or of a certain portion of our enemy's troops escaping its vigilance or mastering its opposition at some weak point, that our land army— our reserve that is-would be called into action. That emergency, and that only, is therefore the case which, looking at a popular army as a means of national defence, we need to provide. Now what is the force we should require to give a good account of such an invading army as our navy could not prevent from effecting a landing on our shores? Lord Derby estimates it at 100,000 men; and this number, if well-appointed and fully-trained troops (and we ought to dream of no other), would probably be amply sufficient. Now, in order to secure this force, the advocates of the popular theory would keep three times the number constantly in the ranks; and would subject, besides, all the rest of the adult male population to a certain period of annual drill ——i.e., unproductive parade, during which they would earn no wages, and produce no wealth-during which all the industrial, or commercial, or professional organizations, of which they formed a part, would be more or less disorganized. Certainly, a more wasteful mode of supplying our necessities could not well be devised.

Of the wastefulness of the scheme, from another point of view, we shall have to speak presently. But its purely economic extravagance will not be fully realized without looking at it a little more closely. It is proposed to take all male citizens, urban, rural, industrial, and professional, as soon as they reach the age of twenty (or thereabouts), enrol them in the ranks, and train them to be thorough soldiers, making them live a soldier's life for at least two years. That, at all events, is the average form the scheme assumes in the minds of its enthusiastic supporters. Now nineteen-twentieths of our young men enter upon life—that is, commence the trade, the labour, the study, the profession, by which they are to earn their bread—at the age of sixteen, or even earlier, and must do this in order to learn it thoroughly. At the age of twenty, then, almost every one of them has fallen into his niche, has adopted his calling, has got his post, and is doing something, perhaps everything, for the support of himself and his parents. He has grown warm to his work, and has nearly mastered it. The peasant has become a tolerable ploughman, the mechanic, artisan, or handicraftsman is growing skilful at his tools, the spinner or weaver has learned the nicer manipulations of his factory, and is receiving an increase of his wages. The engineer, the merchant's clerk, the civil service employé, the shoemaker's or tailor's apprentice, the young apothecary, are just beginning to be thoroughly useful and efficient. The student of law, medicine, and divinity, the special pleader's pupil, the surgeon's assistant, the undergraduate bent upon scholastic honours, are alike in the very

crisis of their professional training, the prize in view, the discipline for it almost completed. The fatal hour strikes, and every one of these is summoned away to serve two or three years in the ranks of the army; and, because his country may some day or other really need his services, to lead a life, half of drill, half of idleness and parade; to forget his calling, to forego perfection in his craft, to lose his special manual skill, to forfeit his earnings (perhaps essential to his family), to see his place at the spinningwheel, or behind the counter, his desk in the office, his seat in the counting-house, filled by others; to leave what he has won, to do what he dislikes, and to have to recommence a career and re-seek a post or an occupation at the end of three disturbing, incapacitating, and perhaps demoralizing, years.

A scheme more disastrous, more fatal to that workmanlike perfection in every branch of industry which has conferred on England such reputation, and brought her such wealth and supremacy in mechanical production, could scarcely have been devised. Happily it would be at least as universally irritating and unpopular as it would be disastrous, and as unjust and unequal in its pressure on different classes in the community as it is utterly uneconomical in its whole conception; and could, therefore, scarcely by any possibility be carried out. And it is proposed and urged, in order to meet emergencies for which it would be an immense over-provision as well as not the appropriate provision; which, if the national policy be wise and just, and be pursued with consistency, and be committed to capable hands, need never arise at all; and which, if they should arise, may be met at far smaller cost, and in a far more efficient

fashion.

Lord Derby-whose cold, clear sense and rare faculty of thinking for himself on every subject, in place of echoing the thoughts (or habitual expressions of opinion rather than real thoughts) of others, never fails to cast a strong, true light on whatever topic he touchessummed up most admirably all the objections we have urged against the adoption of the Prussian system in a recent speech to the volunteers at Liverpool. The last two sentences are especially worthy of attention:

"I am quite aware that there are many people who, having been struck with admiration-and no wonder that they should be-at the marvellous power, whether for aggression or defence, which the Prussian organization gives, wish to see some modification of it introduced into England. Now, to such persons I would say, take hints from your neighbours by all means, but do not servilely copy their institutions without first considering whether your position is like theirs. (Applause.) Now, we are in a totally different position, as has been said many hundreds of times, from that of any continental state. We have no frontiers. No enemy can pour half a million of men into this country. The utmost strength which we can be called

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