TOPICS OF THE DAY.
A "MEDLEY OF PHILOSOPHY AND WAR" ". . . [They] will bear no more
This medley of philosophy and war, And in an hour they'll storm the Senate house."
—Addison's " Cato."
THE lines from Addison's "Cato," which we place at the head of this article, represent the feelings of at any rate one Englishman on reading the recent Parlia- mentary debates on the Army and the discussions in the press. "We confess to a feeling of bitter exasperation when contemplating futile and pedantic calculations of how many thousand German soldiers could dance upon the point of an English needle—for that is about the worth of arguments as to what is the exact number of the raiding force that may or might or could or will be landed on our shores. The mental temper of those who face great problems and great crises in the national existence in such a spirit terrifies us, we confess, far more than any thought of a hostile landing. These nice distinctions as to what is safe and what is not, these scholastic exercises in strategic and tactical arithmetic, these metaphysical discussions as to how many half-trained or quarter-trained Englishmen it -will take to deal with a whole-trained German, these anatomies of the equivalent of a Pomeranian grenadier, when he is in his natural home, when he is half seas over, and when he is landed now in Kent, now in Sussex, now on the East Coast, and now in Scotland, when he has guns but no horses, when he has horses but no guns, when he has neither, and when he has both, when he comes in a bunch, or when he comes in driblets—what are they all but misty abstractions which in very truth deserve the scornful words of Sempronius. They are a "medley of philosophy and war," which not only no soldier, but no sane man will continue to bear. If persisted in, they will assuredly make the English people storm the Senate house and send its occupants about their business as utterly unworthy to deal with the supreme interests of the nation. "Cease your fooling and come down," are the only words for such chimeras boom- ing in the illimitable inane.
What does all this hubbub of words mean ? What is there behind all these subtle speculations as to 70,000 raiders and their 300,000 hypothetical opponents—a force, to take the official accounts, resembling nothing so much as a tin of mixed biscuits ? Here a Territorial, there a Regular, here a Special and there a National Reservist. What inspires all this sapient cackle ? If the people of England want to know the truth, it is this. What the men who are using "this medley of philosophy and war," this degradation of military art and science, are trying to do is to evade a duty, and to help others to evade it also. The duty of our statesmen is to tell the nation that the present age is one which, though it may talk humanitarianism, is in reality as materialistic and as iron- hearted as any that the world has ever seen, and as determined that the race shall be to the swift and the spoils to the victors. It is an age which has no place in it for "harmless men" ; an age in which there is no safety, and can be no safety, for those who have not learned to defend themselves, their homes, and their liberties by the use of their own right arms. To point this out is the duty of our statesmen. The duty of the men of this country is to heed the warning, and, whether reluctant or not, whether disillusioned or not, whether half-hearted or not, to take up the burden. Instead of this double duty done, what do we see ? We find poli- ticians shuffling with figures and trying to show their countrymen that they can be made perfectly safe by avoiding their plain duty and by ignoring the facts of life. They are visibly protesting that with a little luck and plenty of ships even an inadequate and half-trained force will probably be enough to save the country from doing a duty which it dreads, or is supposed to dread, so greatly. The danger is plain before us, but the politicians hold their little paper screens close to their eyes, and with pale faces and in trembling voices swear that they can see no danger anywhere. Therefore the danger cannot exist, or, if it does exist, paper shelters are quite sufficient. The country, though absorbed in its work or its pleasures, is manifestly uneasy, but still only half-awake. It still clings fondly to the notion that its statesmen and its leaders would never be so foolish or so base as to deceive it on a point of duty. "If these learned and honourable and high-minded men tell us all is well, it must be all right," is still the popular cry. "They ought to know. It is their job to warn us. They have not warned us. Therefore it is no use to worry." That has always been the English mood, the mood which Carlyle described so well when he spoke of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors "moving about in pot-bellied equanimity." There are signs, however, that a new feeling is beginning to stir within the country, that enlightenment is coming, not from the leaders of the nation but from the people themselves. They am beginning to remember that— "high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more,"
and that when such vast issues are at stake it is treason to juggle with little peddling metaphysical quips, abstract guesses and hypothetical calculations — the pathetic devices of bewildered pedants. These may do very well for the class-rooms at Sandhurst or the Staff College. Nay, they are very right and proper there. Great national issues must be decided on infinitely broader grounds. In a word, if the politicians cannot bring themselves to face their duty, the nation will do it for them, and truly in an hour may "storm the Senate house." In the last resort nations are not ruined or saved. according to whether their leaders make a right or a wrong shot as to how many men can land on their shores or how many other men will be required to expel them. They are saved, and can only be saved, not by such fine philosophies but by the spirit that is within the people'— by choosing the path of duty instead of the path of convenience, not by a victory in arithmetic but by a victory in the spirit. The victory of national safety, in a word, will be won in the spirit and not in the dockyard. Even if it could be shown beyond all possibility of dispute that if our Navy is big enough and strong enough there can be no need for a single armed man in these islands, we should still argue as strongly as ever that the nation must shoulder for itself the duty of national defence and that our population must be trained to defend the Motherland. A Navy which rests upon the calculations of national skulkers, and becomes confessedly and consciously an engine for duty-dodging, must in the end become rotten and worthless, a thing only great to the eyes —one which will need but the push of a real man to send it to eternal perdition. We have only to follow the path which New Zealand and Australia have shown us, and the path which we ourselves once trod. Remember it was England under her militia system which, first of all the nations, adopted the principle that it is the duty of every man to defend his country in arms. If we adopt universal training and universal service, we are not doing anything new, but simply resuming a duty which was once clear to every Englishman, though of late years we have so strangely forgotten it. Under the common law of England every man at the demand of the sovereign, that is, of the national Government, may be called upon to resist the King's enemies. If he refuses he has committed a felony and may be punished accordingly. It was, indeed, under these common-law powers that Abraham Lincoln imposed universal service upon the Northern States. But though the law of the land already prescribes the duty of universal service, it has forgotten to add the obligation of universal training. All we need, however, is to apply common sense to the law of the laud, to make it a reality and not an abstraction. We want to free ourselves from the emasculating food, the food of humbug, the "medley of philosophy and war," upon which we have fed too long, and to look our obligations full in the face. As every man may some day be called upon to join in repelling the King's enemies, we must provide that he shall be trained for the work and so maintain the national spirit. That is the spirit upon which the nation can rest secure, and not upon calculations of how many hypothetical Territorials will be required to defeat seventy thousand hypothetical invaders. If we shoulder the duty of National Defence we shall find, As all men do who undertake a duty, that it is only painful and terrifying before it is attempted. The path that looked so rough and so disagreeable will prove when we tread it of very different quality. The burden taken up in grim earnest will turn out not a burden but a blessing. If every youth in this country were required to undergo four months' physical training of a military character and were then obliged to enter the Territorial army for four years, we should awake to find that we had not only made this country absolutely secure from invasion and from the threat of invasion, but also had conferred upon the popula- tion, and quite as much upon the rich as upon the poor, incalculable benefits, physical, moral, and intellectual. Incessant barrack life and barrack duties may wither the mind and render a man a machine. A short spell of military duty, or rather the learning of the military art, is the best of stimulants both for mind and body. There is not a yowl.. man in the kingdom who would not be the better for his four months' training.
"But," say our timid dialecticians, with a triumphant air, even though their teeth chatter with their secret fears, "what a desperate position you are preparing for ! Under your system we should have far more men than we could ever use." We care not even if that is so. What we should have accomplished in reality is not so much the creation of an armed force as the creation or re-creation of a nation. We should have made men realize that they owe a duty to themselves and their fellows, and that not one of them is too good to serve his country. We should have provided a foundation upon which the nation can rest secure. With the whole people of this country trained to arms no enemy would risk invasion, and though we should not in the future any more than in the past claim the right to send a single Englishman out of these islands unwill- ingly, we should have a reservoir of trained men on which we could draw for oversea war in case of some great national peril. We have never feared if such peril came that there would be any lack of volunteers. But, alas ! such volunteers would now be useless. They would know nothing of the military art. Under a system of National Service every one of them would be trained—as much trained as the bulk of the Bulgarians who stormed the works at Adrianople three weeks ago. Shakespeare, who knew everything, knew the true spirit of Englishmen and knew their necessities. What were the words which he put into the mouth of the recruit who, when " pressed " under a wicked and foolish law, saw others buy their exemption but was too poor to buy it for himself ?— " By my troth, I care not ; a man can die but once ; we owe God a death : I'll ne'er bear a base mind: an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so : no man is too good to serve's prince ; and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next."
Verily no man is too good to serve his country. We may be sure, too, that the vast majority of Englishmen, when they are no longer asked to palter with tactical statistics and "medleys of philosophy and war," will tell us in Shakespeare's words, "I'll ne'er bear a base mind."
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