It is estimated that universal training would give us in
case of peril about one million two hundred thousand men for home defence. That is good, but the military result might possibly be obtained in other ways. What could not be obtained in other ways are the physical benefits derived from the training, and, still better, the moral and political results,—results which the Swiss and the Norwegians have come to value so highly. Men who realise the terrible responsibilities of modern war, and realise also that if war takes place they may have to bear those responsibilities in their own persons, and cannot rely upon hiring men to defend them and their homes and country, are not the raw material out of which that most detestable of human beings, the music-hall Jingo, can be manufactured. We may note that the War Office disputes the figures of the National Service League, and declares that its policy would cost the country an extra £8,000,000 a year. Possibly the National Service League may be a little too optimistic, but we do not doubt that the War Office, disliking as it does the idea of universal training, which is democratic and opposed to militarism, is far too pessimistic.
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