16 MARCH 1901, Page 2

Of coarse Mr. Balfour had no difficulty in showing the

futility of all this talk. In reality there is nothing new or aggressive in Mr. Brodrick's scheme. He does not propose to add to the Regular Army, except to give some ten thousand veterans a chance to make the Army a life career, while his only essential addition, the increase of twenty-five thousand men to the Yeomanry, is surely nob a menace to our fixed policy of avoiding militarism. The truth is Mr. Brodrick's scheme only sounds new and dreadful to those who have for the first time considered our military arrangements. To those not previously ignorant it seems, in spite of certain defects, a sound and reasonable development of the old system. We would point out also to the Opposition that Mr. Brodrick's plan cannot at one and the same time be an utterly worthless piece of bubble-blowing and a scheme so sinister, deep, and far- reaching that it will make us as much enslaved to militarism as the nations of the Continent.