The Trained Reserves Lord Cecil has announced at Geneva that
the Govern- ment do not feel themselves bound by the decision of Mr. Baldwin's Administration to consent to the exclusion of trained reserves from estimates of military strength. It is notorious that Sir Austen Chamberlain gave this consent very unwillingly, and he did so only because he felt that progress towards disarmament would other- wise be impossible. The United States consented for the same reason. It is an extraordinarily puzzling question. If men who are passed rapidly into the reserve are not to be reckoned as soldiers it will be almost impossible to form estimates of the strength of the various nations. Moreover, Germany is forbidden by the Peace Treaty to have a conscript army. If the conscript countries are allowed to turn the greater part of their manhood into potential soldiers and yet own up to only a small numerical' strength Germany will have a very genuine grievance. On the other hand, it has to be recognized that the great Latin. countries loOk upon conscription as a sort of sacred .democratic obligation, and as a form of protection which the people would lose if their ,Governments had voluntary or mercenary armies. It is difficult to know how to treat militarism when it marches under the banner of principle.
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