COMPULSORY SERVICE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:'] Six,—The following extract from "The Life of Archbishop Benson" may interest you. It is part of a letter from Dr. Benson to Professor Weatcott, June 16th, 1889, on "A Christian Policy of Peace and Disarmament":— "I had a long talk to a German Prince the other day, who seemed to have as much horror of war as one could wish, but was an active officer and held the Army to be the strength of Germany not as security only, but, for reasons which I have never realised,—its enormous and constant effect on the physique of the men of the nation. They had become very small and weak, he said, and the muscle and sinew of the whole people was gone, partly old wars, partly ill-drained towns and close occupations, and poor food and poor means. The case had been desperate almost when the great system of Turnen ' (gym- nastic) exercises in preparation for the Army, was made to form part of all their educational courses, and caused the great per- fection in the Army. This physical restoration of the people he spoke of with much enthusiasm, and of all the healthy habits induced by drill universal, and it is quite clear that there was an entirely separate ground (in a good young fellow's mind) for keeping up the armament The Germans have no love of games, and will take no exercise except with a serious end in view."— (VoL IL, p. 259.)
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