as at present organised, are incapable of taking their place in the first fighting line, how are we to obtain an efficient second-line army capable of rendering this service? That this can be achieved I have not the shadow of a doubt, and achieved at less cost than for years we have been expending to no purpose. If the nation wishes this end it must wish the means that will produce it. The scheme with which I will conclude this article seems to me to be the only possible way of achieving success, and I hope that it, or something on the same lines, will be found to be the groundwork of Mr. Haldane's scheme of reorganisation.

It is evident that our existing auxiliary forces are incapable of supplying an efficient second-line army to effectively reinforce the first line in the field. Mr. Haldane has, I think, recognised this fact. In his speech of the 12th of July of last year he said of the Militia: ‘In time of peace they stay at home, but in time of war they can be of no use to us, unless they form an efficient first-line support to the regular army in the field,' a service which, I have shown, the force, as constituted, is incapable of rendering. In his speech at Newcastle he said: The nation in arms is the only safeguard to the public interests. Unless we have an army based on the people, it must, according to modern standards, be a weak army.' He thought 'the time had come to make a beginning and to appeal to the manhood of the nation to render this service.' This accords with the views of the Royal Commission presided over by the Duke of Norfolk. It reported that a home defence army capable,

in the absence of the whole, or the greater part, of the regular forces, of protecting their country against invasion can be raised and maintained only on the principle that it is the duty of every citizen, of military age and sound physique, to be trained for the national defence and to take part in it should emergency arise. It is impossible to rely upon the Volunteers as now constituted or upon the Militia.

The Royal Commission of 1903 reported that

no military system will be satisfactory which does not contain powers of expansion outside the limit of the regular forces of the country, whatever that limit may be.

These are practically the ideas which Lord Roberts has been urging on the nation, with such patriotism, perseverance and eloquence, for the past few years. In his speech at Newcastle in December 1905, after expressing the same opinion as that of the Royal Commission, he said:

It is said by the do-nothing class of persons that the remedy I propose is little short of conscription, and I must, therefore, once again assert, what I have frequently asserted before, that I am always and altogether opposed to conscription as totally inapplicable to an army, the greater part of which must always be serving abroad. Surely there is all the difference in the world between

...

a nation, every man of which is obliged to serve in the ranks of the regular army, and perform all the onerous duties of a regular soldier, during peace and for small wars, as is the case on the Continent, and the nation which, while maintaining an army for foreign service, asks every man to undergo such a training as will fit him to take a useful part in a great national emergency. .. By the system I propose no actual service would be demanded of anyone except for home defence in the event of a great national emergency. But every ablebodied man, whatever his birth, position, or wealth, high or low, rich or poor, would be obliged to acquire a knowledge of military duties sufficient to fit him to take his part in the defence of the country. All the time demanded would be devoted to training, and no man would be taken from civil life in peace, to garrison our fortresses, or perform any of the services that fall to the lot of the regular army, or to conscript armies of continental nations. . . . In our endeavour to get the principle accepted we shall, no doubt, meet with the usual arguments urged by that section of the public who are content to believe that, as we have muddled through critical periods in our past history, we may hope to be as fortunate in the future. Let me implore you, as a soldier of more than fifty years' service, who knows what war was, and what it is now, not to be led away by such dangerous beliefs. The days of muddling through a war to a satisfactory conclusion, by dint of a dogged perseverance and physical courage alone, on the part of our troops, are over. You do not neglect the insurance of your business premises on the chance that 'fortune will favour the brave,' and it is as an insurance against risk to this great Empire, and to your native land, that I would ask you to help me in extending the principle of universal training.

Lord Roberts's eloquent appeal has met with marked success throughout the nation. Lord Rosebery in Edinburgh on the 8th of December said:

I do not think all realise, as they should realise, that they owe, as a great duty to the country, the duty of taking up arms, if necessary, in its defence. I know it is held that this is not a democratic view, that it savours of militarism, and that militarism is a feudal, exploded, aristocratic idea which should not find refuge in any manly bosom. The exact reverse of that is the case. There is no more democratic idea than the idea that every man owes a military duty to his country. In England the armed force of the country primarily consists of every able-bodied man within its limits. That is the old unwritten law of the constitution of England.

Lord Milner recently stated that he was

an out-and-out believer in the doctrine that a great nation should rely for its protection upon its whole manhood, and not upon a limited professional class.

He accepted unreservedly the doctrine that

it is the duty of everyone to take part in the service of his country, and to be so trained that he could do so effectively. . . . I believe in universal military training. I have been an accomplice of Lord Roberts in his attempt to persuade his countrymen not to rely entirely upon paying a small portion of their number to fight for the rest, but to establish our national security upon a broader basis, and one-if I may say it without offence-more compatible with self-respect. I agree with all Mr. Haldane and Lord Rosebery have recently said, and said much better than I can, about a nation in arms, and the duty of every man to be ready to defend his country. But I go one step further than they do. I cannot for the life of me see, if this really is the duty of every man, and a duty

of supreme importance to the State, why the performance of that duty should be left quite optional, while the discharge of many minor duties is not so left. Either this great second line of defence, this national reservoir of men, is a vital public necessity or it is not. . . . If it is, how extraordinary to leave it to chance, to individual preference, or convenience, to decide whether you get it or not. ... But above all have one period of military training for men of all classes on the threshold of manhood, which should be regarded as part of the education of the citizen, and would give you material alike for the small professional army, which would still be voluntarily recruited, and for that great national reserve, however organised, on the necessity of which every expert, as far as I know, is agreed.

Mr. Stead says:

When a nation shall have reached the point where every citizen feels it his duty and privilege to be trained in arms for the defence of the Fatherland, and is educated to understand the real significance of this service, it will become a greater, saner, and more efficient people.

The Social Democratic Federation recently issued a pamphlet, written by the well-known Mr. H. Quelch, entitled 'Social Democracy and the Armed Nation.' While strongly opposed to militarism, it states:

What we advocate is not compulsory military service, but a compulsory and universal military training. That is a totally different matter. Conscription is an evil. It involves the withdrawal of men from civil life, keeping them herded together in barracks, establishing them as a caste apart, as soldiers, as distinct from civilians or citizens. Conscription means a standing army of men decivilised, removed from citizenship, in antagonism to the great body of people, the citizens; the compulsory military training which we advocate carries with it the avoidance of all these evils. It means that every citizen shall be trained to act as a soldier at need, but that no one shall become merely a soldier, or cease to be a citizen. Thus, by training every man to the use of arms from his youth up, we should have-without the waste, the expense, the vice and demoralisation of the barracks-the armed nation, the real army of the democracy

The German democracy shares this view. Herr Bebel, its leader, says: 'Home defence is a duty for all who are capable of that duty.' Sir George Hayter Chubb says:

No one who combines an acquaintance with commerce and with naval and military service can come to any other conclusion but that it would be the best thing for the country that there should be some form of universal military service.

Colonel Sir John E. Bingham says:

Twelve months' training for young workmen and others, say between seventeen and nineteen years of age, when they would be most easily moulded, and spared from their work, would be to their physical and disciplinary advantage. I have found volunteering leave them all the better workmen, writing as I do, authoritatively, from my military knowledge and as a large employer of labour.

The President of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce stated:

I am quite sure that if it were enacted that young men between nineteen and twenty-one, or some similar age, were to spend a year of their lives with the regulars they would come back to us much better men . . . and they would get better wages when they returned to us than they did when they left us. I am sure that without this insurance for our country we shall be in a state of decadence before long; and as an employer of labour I would support it most enthusiastically. Whatever system sends workpeople to universal military training, it will make them better citizens and better workpeople than they will otherwise be without it.

The military correspondent of the Times, a recognised authority on military questions, says:

The doctrine that every man is bound to be ready to defend the Empire, whenever attacked, is one that we not only can, but must, support with all its consequences and with enthusiasm, as every nation in Europe worth its salt has done, if facts disclose that voluntary patriotism no longer responds to our needs.

The Times endorses this view :

Our military correspondent, who has hitherto been a constant advocate of the voluntary principle, confesses frankly that, at the present rate, the defenders of that principle will soon be driven to their last ditch, and that the nation, which really does care about national security, will rally round men like Lord Roberts and Lord Milner who know what they want, and have a definite solution which will provide the force we require, and who appeal to a great moral and political principle.

At first the public seemed to fear that this enforced national training would give rise to undue militarism. That fear has now greatly diminished, if it has not yet been completely dispelled. The pamphlet of the Social Democratic Federation already quoted states:

It is safe to say that there is an infinitely stronger peace party in countries where military service is compulsory than in this country with its voluntary system. . . . The more the evil consequences of war are brought home to the people in their everyday life, the more will they desire that it should be avoided. Every man would be liable . . . and the majority would certainly be in favour of peace and against war.

Lord Milner said 'the development of qualities of discipline, order, method and the sense of public duty was a question we had to face,' and expressed his firm conviction that

a people prepared to undergo trouble and face danger, by personal service, would outstrip, not only in war but in peace, the efforts of nations who refused to make a similar sacrifice for their country's good. People think that it will make us more prone to go to war. Personally, I hold exactly the opposite opinion. Professional soldiers may sometimes wish for war, and an unmilitary mob does often clamour for it, from an unhealthy love of excitement as for some gladiatorial show. They would feel very differently if they had themselves to be the gladiators. . . . In a democratic State having a national militia the men who decide upon a war are the men who, or whose children, have got to wage it.

They will think twice before they take the plunge, but other nations will also think twice before they quarrel with them.

Lord Roberts, in the speech I have already quoted, said:

It has, I know, frequently been urged that universal military training would lead to militarism and to war. Would that I could convince the haters of militarism, and lovers of peace, how truly the contrary is the case. There is no surer guarantee of peace than to be prepared for war. If every able-bodied man in our island is prepared to play the part of the strong man armed, his own and his country's goods will remain at peace.

I think I have laboured this aspect of the case sufficiently, at any rate as far as respect for space will justify me in doing.

Lord Roberts has said:

If once the principle be adopted by the nation that it is the duty of every man to fit himself for the defence of the country in the event of a great emergency, a scheme for carrying it into effect would not, I believe, be difficult to formulate.

I would have preferred to leave the formulation of an organisation, which would give shape and effect to the views of the authorities I have quoted, in other and more capable hands than mine; but as I am not aware that any scheme of organisation has been formulated, I feel that I may, after fifty years' touch with army questions, venture, without undue presumption, to lay before the public a scheme which I have long thought to be the only practicable one. If the nation decides that part of the education of its young men shall consist of sufficient military training to qualify them to take part in the defence of their country, the establishment of the necessary military schools of instruction throughout the country will be a much more simple matter than might be supposed. The schools must always be open and ready at all times to receive pupils. An effective machinery for this is ready to our hands. We have in this country the headquarters and staff of 124 Militia battalions. These are only assembled for duty on twenty-seven days in the year when the Militia undergo their, deficient, annual training. These Militia battalions form part of regiments of the regular army, though the connexion between the regulars and the Militia battalions has been much less intimate than Lord Cardwell contemplated, and very much less than it should be.

My proposal is that the staff of the Militia battalions should be permanently embodied, that they should become the dépôt battalions of the line regiments; the lieutenant-colonel commanding, the adjutant, and perhaps one or two other officers, should be drawn from the battalions of regulars. This measure will have the incidental advantage of remedying the draft difficulty when both regular battalions are abroad, of which we have heard so much of late years. It should be the duty of the dépôt battalion to train the recruits for the line