The Brussels correspondent of the Times reports that the dominant
question in Belgium now is the strengthening of military defence. It is proposed to raise the Army from a hundred and fifty thousand to a hundred and eighty thousand men, to increase the yearly draft from thirteen thousand to eighteen thousand, and to make personal service obligatory on all men. At present a man who can pay £64 purchases exemption for life, and all to whom it is possible avail them- selves of the privilege. The Liberals, the Socialists, and all soldiers are said to be in favour of these changes, but they are disliked by the Clericals, who, however, though they are a majority, may yield to pressure from the King and the alarmists, who are afraid of a German occupation. The changes, if made, will not alter the European situation, but they are of great interest in another way. They show that in Europe the neutrality of a State does not involve exemption from the conscription or its consequence, barrack life for the young. That fact does, and must, diminish the reluctance of the small States to be absorbed in large Empires.
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