A SOCIALIST ON NATIONAL DEFENCE.
MO a certain kind of mind it appears to be an attractive theory that because a statement of facts may have been introduced to the public notice with an undesirable motive, the facts themselves have somehow ceased to be true. A good illustration of this mental process is to be found in the comments of Liberal newspapers and speakers on the articles on the German menace which Mr. Blatchford, the well-]mown Socialist, has been writing in the Daily Mail. They believe that Mr. Blatchford's articles have been pub- lished at this juncture solely in order to draw a red-herring across the trail of the General Election, and that therefore the articles need not be examined seriously. But let us look on the matter with common-sense. The assertion that the articles were published as an electioneering dodge diminishes their force. That is just the thing Mr. Blatchford would not desire. As he is an ardent Socialist, and detests the House of Lords, as an institution, with the fervour proper to his creed, we imagine that he at all events did not procure the publication of his articles at this time for the purpose of saving the Lords. Whatever use the articles may be turned to as a means of distraction and digression, Mr. Blatchford's sincerity may be taken for granted. We ourselves rather regret that the articles should have been published now, when there are enough issues fully to occupy the thoughts of the country—the simultaneous attack on democracy by Liberals who would like to govern by caucus, apparently under the delusion that their wishes must necessarily always be the wishes of the democracy, and on the integrity of the United Kingdom by the new promise of Home-rule—but our regret is aroused only by the reflection that the true things which Mr. Blatchford has written may appear for irrelevant reasons to be untrue. He feels very strongly the reality of the danger to which his country is exposed, and he writes with unmistakable passion and earnestness. In choosing this moment for the publication of his articles he must, then, have argued to himself in this way :—" The veto of the Lords, their relation to the Commons, the Budget, the Land-taxes, the licensing clauses, Home-rule, and whatever other questions may be raised at the Election have no significance -whatever beside the simple fact that if this country were conquered the decision on all these matters would no longer lie with the British people. The Lords are usurping the financial rights of the House of Commons, and when the right time comes they must be prevented from doing so ; but the immediate task before Englishmen is to make sure that any British institutions should be left existing at all." When a man feels like that it is quite beside the mark to charge him with flippantly lending himself to a party manoeuvre. Mr. Blatchford may be used as a stalking horse, but every cool-headed person should remember that his articles can be judged ultimately only on their merits without reference to their accidental uses.
Mr. Blatchford has tried to show that Germany aims at European domination ; that to attain her ends she must outbid Britain in naval power ; that all attempts at conciliation and compromise are bound to fail ; and that unless Englishmen face the situation squarely, and make the necessary sacrifices, they will lose their independence and their Empire. The loss of independence would mean national bankruptcy, and such acute suffering to the whole industrial population as has never yet been ]mown and has probably never been imagined. With this general statement we are in perfect agreement, especially as Mr'. Blatchford makes it clear that he brings no charge against the German people, for whom he professes a genuine liking and admiration. But unfortunately the German people are not responsible for German policy, which is kept quite out- side their cognisance, and which has shown no signs of departing from the tradition of " blood and iron " manifested in the successful wars against Denmark, Austria, and France. The peculiar significance of Mr. Blatchford's articles is, of course, that they are a warning entirely contrary to the general tendency of the Socialistic creed. They have already exposed the writer to a good deal of denunciation on Socialistic and Radical platforms. Yet he has not written these articles " for the good of his health " ; he has written them because he believes them to be not only true but necessary. We can only hope that he will not end his efforts with these articles, but will continue to preach the necessity of being prepared, because he can claim such a, hearing from the working classes as few other men in the country could command There need, after all, be no question of stirring up illwill between Germany and Great Britain ; it would only be a question of insisting on the absolute need for Great Britain to remain mistress of the seas if the Empire is to survive. Further, Mr. Blatchford's warning is likely to have more effect when it can no longer be said that his articles are being published for electioneering purposes. The Navy that we need would keep to the two-Power standard, without reference to the question whether one of the two strongest foreign naval Powers was friendly to us or not. If we once began to rule out other Powers on the ground that they were unlikely ever to be hostile to us, we should be making invidious dis- tinctions which would almost have the form of a challenge to those whom we decided to class as unfriendly. More- over, we would add the advisability of a spurt in ship- building—say two keels to one—simply to prove to Ger- many that her challenge is foredoomed to failure,—that we are still untiring in the race, and still have the deter- mination to use our resources to the very end in order to maintain our supremacy. When Mr. Blatchford comes to the question of the Army we are unable wholly to agree with him. The prob- lem of British defence, he says, is the defence of France. His argument is that the invasion of France is even a greater danger than the invasion of Britain. The British Navy might destroy the German Fleet and ruin German foreign trade, but the German Army would still overrun France, and would. retain the strategic points of Calais at one end of the Channel and Cherbourg at the other. She would have, besides, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, which Napoleon said was like a pistol pointed at the hea,rt of England. Therefore, according to Mr. Blatchford, if Britain cannot put a great army into the field to help France to save herself, the British Navy cannot avail'us in the long run. He has gone beyond the point of demanding universal military training, and demands conscription. Here we join issue with him. We agree that the problem of British defence is the defence of France, but we could help France on other lines than he supposes. Our true military policy is to have a Home Defence Army or Militia on the Swiss model capable of thrusting back from our shores any number of invaders who might slip through our naval line, and a comparatively small but efficient Regular Army. If France were involved in a war in which we felt bound to help her, that Regular Army would be without reserve at her disposal, but we do not feel called upon to sacrifice the privileges of our insular position and enlarge our Regular Army for the express purpose of making it suitable for service with conscript armies. We might ultimately put on the Continent an army as large as we had in South Africa, gay three hundred and fifty thousand men. We do not admit for a moment that that army would be a negligible quantity, but in any case we could scarcely hope to offer a larger. one. We are predominantly a naval , Power, and must remain so. Mr. Blatchford curiously underestimates the value 'of sea power. We advise him to extend his historical reading to that question. Imagine France and Germany at war. France might be holding back the German attack all along the line between Belgium and Switzerland. Then Germany might put a quarter of a million men in transports and land. them in the rear of the French, perhaps at Mont St. Michel. The fear of having such a force behind it would almost paralyse the French General Staff if France were fighting alone. But if Britain were co-operating with her, and the com- mand of the sea were secured, the situation would be Completely changed; Power which would be using transports for a flank attack would be France, not Germany Again, Mr. Blatchford appears to have overlooked the Franco-Russian Alliance If we became engaged in a war in company with France, it would. be because France was attacked, and in that case the Russian Army would also be on her side. But it cannot be made too clear that in that, case the British Army would be fully at the service of France.
Although we hold that Mr. Blatchford is mistaken in thinking that we ought to support a conscript Army as well as a great Navy, we cannot leave the subject without saying what a keen pleasure it is to read his words about military service. We are quite sure that the feeling of the ordinary British working man against military service is due to his ignorance of it, and the fact that his mind has been made up for him by political organisers. He would not have any objection to military service, he would not think it an unpleasant experience, and he would not suppose it to be a handicap in his subsequent career in civil life if he had any first-hand experience of the Army. Mr. Blatchford has had that experience, and he knows better. " The price of service," he says, " seems to me a trifle. When I was a young man I served seven years in the Army and three years in the Volunteers. That is very much longer than the service required from young Englishmen to make the Empire safe. I served that time and enjoyed it. Having served that time I cannot understand. the dread and dislike which most Englishmen feel towards military service. Such a training would do them much more good than harm. No. The service is nothing to trouble any young man." He goes on "I, having been in the Army, have known for forty years the mental, moral, and physical advantages of military training, but I have never gone out of my way to say so—for political reasons. However, of late years those political reasons have seemed to me less cogent or less real, while my conviction has deepened that universal military training would be the salvation of the British race. For military training, if conducted on reasonable lines, is not a bad thing but a good thing for all young men. And I am sure, and most soldiers will agree with me, that no gymnastics, nor athletics, nor sports can replace it. Because military training infuses a collective spirit and an instructive discipline which can be gained in no other way. I have recently attended the German and the British Army manoeuvres; and I have recently travelled a good deal in England and in Germany. A while ago I described in these columns the appearance of our troops in Oxfordshire, and the march of the 10th Infantry Brigade through Swindon. Since then I have had occasion to visit some of the working-class dis- tricts of London, and I have seen something of the London poor. The contrast between the young men in Bermondsey and the Borough and the young soldiers who marched into Swindon made a deep impression upon me. The soldiers were healthy, active, merry ; well fed, well washed, properly disciplined, and as fit as fiddles. The young men in the London streets were none of those things. Yet the soldiers and the others were of the same class : the same material."
We do not desire that the young men of Great Britain should. have two years in barracks, but we do say that six months' compulsory training which would make them fit to defend their country, and make their services worth having if ever they cared to offer them for other fighting, would do them all the good in the world. It would make them happier and. more self-respecting men. Probably it is only a question of time for the democracy of Great Britain to recognise that defence of one's country is an honourable service, and that it is a miserably undemocratic practice to repudiate all part or lot in what is after all the first duty of citizenship.
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