THE NATIONAL SERVICE LEAGUE.
[To THE EDITOlt OF THE "SPROTATOR.'] SIR,—Unless I wrong the writer of a letter signed "X." in your last number, be seems to intend a reproach to the National Service League by suggesting as a motto for it his "slight variant" from the Psalmist's words : "When I speak unto them of peace they make them ready for battle." Can he not see that "making ready for battle" means here aggression and attack ? The Psalmist was not such a fool as to deprecate readiness for defence, the one thing to secure the peace he desired, and the supreme object of the National Service League.—I am, Sir, &c., ERNEST MYERS.
[We took our correspondent to mean something very different, —namely, that when men talk most glibly about peace there is always the greatest danger of war. Certainly history affords plenty of examples to illustrate this view. Thousands of people believed that the Great Exhibition of 1851 was going to usher in an epoch of universal peace. In fact, it was the prelude of war throughout the world. It was followed by the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, and the Wars between Austria and Italy, between Prussia and Denmark, between the North and South in America, between Prussia and Austria, and between France and Germany. The first Hague Conference was followed by the Boer and the Russo- Japanese Wars.—En. Spectator.]
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