Ito A. Enema 07 rse " SPit..e."]
Stn,—For twenty years I have read the Spectator regularly, and always been impressed with the sound common-sense which has been a feature of its pages. We are all living just now in a time of national strain and stress, and it is not easy to view things in their true proportion. With profound respect for the ability with which your journal is conducted, however, I venture to think that in the article in your issue of the 22.nd inst. headed " A National Government" you have taken a line which would probably have been modified with a little more consideration. You ask, for instance, that every man between the ages of seventeen and forty shall take his place in the firing line; have you made a calculation to ascertain the number of men that would entail training P The well-known military writer, Colonel Maude, has recently stated that when the three hundred thousand additional men asked for by Lord Kitchener have been obtained we shall probably have outstripped the two-thirds ratio " beyond which even the French law of conscription has never gone." I venture to remind you that this is a war not only of men and munitions of war, but also of finance, and while we all agree that "Business as usual" was a rather foolish cry, the trade of the country must be kept going if we are to succeed in paying our way. The one essential at the present time seems, in my humble judgment, to be arena sans in corpora sena–.
Previous page
