THE DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR"] SIR,—It would seem to be a very general opinion that if we were once possessed of an overwhelming Navy—that is, of a Navy equal to any three or four of the other Great Powers then the whole object of the present agitation for efficiency would be accomplished, and we could all safely resume our slumbers so rudely disturbed by the late war. That a Isiary large enough to render these islands safe from invasion and to defend our commerce from serious interference is an absolute necessity no one who has carefully considered the question will attempt to deny ; bat, fortunately or unfortunately, according as one holds Imperialistic or Manchesterian views, these islands are no longer the only territory we have to defend,—they no longer in themselves constitute the Empire. The duty, then, of every Englishman to-day is not merely to see that these little islands "lying off the North of France" are safe, but equally to see to it that we are capable of guarding the vast Empire which owns our sway; and that entails the defence of land frontiers longer than those of any other Great Power excepting Russia. To do this is obviously not a naval work so long as ships cannot move without water; and we are thus faked by the problem how best to prepare to defend these immense posses- sions in case of a war with another world-Power. The usual way of meeting this difficulty as it has arisen has been slowly and hesitatingly to increase the Regular Army ; but any increase short of two hundred thousand men would be a mere drop in the ocean, and so great an increase as this is out of the question owing to its gigantic cost. We are driven, then, to find another and a cheaper way, and the one which presents itself to many men at present is that of some form of military training for the whole nation. Such a general military training would give us a population already schooled to arms, and one which when appealed to for volunteers by the Government in war time could respond with greater alacrity and much more effect than we can hope for under present circumstances. Further, a naval training for our fishing population and for any others who should desire it might be included in this universal service, thus rectifying one of the most serious defects in our Navy as at present organised, the want of a sufficient Reserve. But there is another and yet more serious problem even than that of the defence of the Empire, and this also a national training to arms would go a long way to solve. I refer, of course, to the problem, the vital immediate problem, of how to reintroduce health and vigour into the mass of the working classes of our great cities. That this is a very serious question indeed no one who has worked among the poor in a big city, or lived sufficiently long abroad to be able to compare the working men of such a nation as Germany with our own, will for one moment doubt. I have before me the German recruiting returns for the last five years published in the Deutscher Landtairthschaftsrat, and also the returns from the recruiting office at Manchester for the three years 1899, 1900, 1901. Prom these figures it appears that the percentage of young Germans fit for service during the above-mentioned five years in Berlin was 38; in East Prussia, an almost wholly agricultural country, 80; and in the whole of Germany 62. In Manchester during the three years ending January, 1902, the percentage of would-be recruits fit for service was only 28. Now these figures, if correct, as I believe them to be, show two things,—firstly, that a big town does very seriously affect the physique of those living in it, a direful thought for Englishmen when we remember that three-quarters of our people live in great cities, whereas only two-sevenths of the Germans and one-quarter of the French do so; and secondly, they show that even as regards health in cities, and in spite of all our supposed superior sanitary arrangements, the Germans are overhauling us. These figures are alarming enough in all conscience, and are made the more so by the fact, which I have on the authority of a Surgeon-General in the Prussian Army, that the returns of the Prussian Recruiting Office show the general health and vigour of the Pnissian people to have considerably improved since compulsory service was first started some ninety years ago. Will any one dare to say the same of the mass of our people during this period? Thus it would seem that, if we allow our city Populations to go on, as at present, with practically no exercise or fresh air either as children or as young men and women, we shall soon be so far behind our peat rivals in general vitality that it will be almost hopeless for us to continue to strug,gle with them for the leadership of the world, whether in arms or commerce. We are driven, then, to conclude that not only, nor perhaps
even mainly, as the surest way of making secure from attack
the - • •
laau frontiers of our Empire, but still more for the sake ofthe health and vigour of our street-bred people, some form of military training, of life in the open air, for a few months each summer, should be made compulsory for all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. In short, it must ever remain the duty of the Navy to defend these islands from invasion and our commerce from piratical attacks ; but we need a national militia, not to supersede the present Regular Army, whose duty must always be to police and defend our out- lying possessions, but to give us a people able to volunteer in case of emergency, and without further training to take their place alongside of the Regulars. Still more will some such system be necessary to act as the national training school for Englishmen in health and rigour both of mind and body.
C. W. M. MooRsom.
[Our sympathies are with any well-thought-out plan which will add compulsory physical training and education of a military kind to the literary education which is already com- pulsory. Such an addition to our national education would improve our health and morals, and also give us a reservoir of men out of which effective volunteer soldiers could be raised in time of war.—En. Spectator.]
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