President Roosevelt has addressed to Mr. Taft, the American Secretary
for War, a letter on the character and achievements of Admiral Togo, with a view of enforcing the lesson of efficiency in the Army and Navy. The letter has been published as a general Army Order. The President insists upon the perfec- tion of individual character and training if good armies and navies are to be created. He quotes Togo's address on the conclusion of war as the true fighting man's creed. Battles were won only by a serious preparation in peace,—a prepara- tion not only of weapons and materials, but of character. Men were unfit to conquer in war unless in peace they kept their minds and bodies active, and their spirit keen, and omitted no detail of preparation which forethought could devise. This was Japan's lesson to the world, audit was this spirit which bad made Togo "one of the great sea-fighters of all time." "If in peace men abandon themselves to ease and sloth, when at war they will go down before rivals less self-indulgent." The President's wise and inspiring words are not less applicable to the British public than to the American. They will, we trust, be taken to heart by the whole Anglo-Saxon race,—by all, that is, who speak the English tongue.
