THE DANGERS OF FREEDOM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Decades of wealth, power, and prosperity have made the male population of these islands adverse to discipline, and the appeal to help their country at this perilous time is made light of by many. They go their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise, though the life of the British Isles is at stake. The unscrupulous foe we are fighting may be allowed to prosper for a long time by foul means. We wait in our phlegmatic way for some horror to happen, like the use of poison gases and the sinking of the 'Lusitania.' Then we calmly say that this will stimulate recruiting. It does for the time being; then we fall to sleep again ; we wait for the next barbarism. We have had unbounded freedom as a nation for so long that, naturally, compulsory military service is distasteful to us ; but at a time like this we might ask ourselves if it really tends altogether to happiness to be so undisciplined, and whether the salutary effects of some form of conscription would not be beneficiaL Surely, as long as wars exist, every male being ought to know the use of a gun, but one would be sorry to say how many men there are in these islands who have never held one in their hands. There is such a thing, in my opinion, as too much freedom for a country, which does not make for its happiness in the long
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