THE GOVERNMENT'S BUGBEAR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1613, 3 December 1912, Page 5

THE GOVERNMENT'S BUGBEAR.

NATIONAL SERVICE SCHEME. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyriteht London, December 1. Sir Edward Carson, speaking at Warrington, said Lord Haldane had left the woolsack in order to tackle Lord Roberts in connection with his national service proposals. Lord Roberts might now drop his baton and sit on the woolsack. Lord Haldane had told the nation that Lord Roberts was not as good a strategist as the Lord Chancellor. The , "Pall Mall Gazette" asserts that Lord Roberts has become the Government's bugbear, and laughs over Lord Haldane's description of him as no strategist. LORD ROBERTS'S WARNING. "WHEN GERMANY WILL STRIKE." "Arm and prepare to quit yourselves lilse men, for the time of your ordeal is at hand," was Lord Roborts'e impressive warming at Manchester on Ooteber 22. • "Now," he said, "just as ill 18G6 and in 1870, war will take place the instant the German forces by laud and sea are, by their superiority at every point, as certain of victory as anything ia human calculation can be made certain. Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck. That is the time-honoured policy of her Foreign Office. It is her policy at the present hour. It is, or should be, the policy of every notion prepared to play a great part in history. "We may stand still. Germany always advances, and the line along which she is moving is now most manifest. It is towards a complete eupremacy by land and sea. Contrasted with our own. apathy or puerile and spasmodic efforts, how impressive is this magnificent and unresting energy! It has the mark of true greatness; it extorts admiration even from those- against whom it is directed! "There is one way in which Britain can have peace not only with Germany but with ever other Power, and that is to present such a battle-front by eea and land that no Power or probable combination of Powers shall dare to attack'her without the certainty of disaster. But there is a way in which Britain is certain to have war and its horrors and calamities: it is this, by persisting in her present course of unpreparedmess, her apathy, unintelligence, and blindness, and in her disregard of the warnings of the most ordinary political insight, as well as of the example of history.

"PRACTICALLY DEFENCELESS." "We have a fleet, but that fleet is rapidly becoming unequal to the fleets by which we may be opposed, and by the inadequacy of our land farces it is maimed and hampered in its very nature as a fleet. "AVhat, then is my plan, and what is my ultimate counsel to the nation and the message to my countrymen at this solemn, hour? It is—'Arm and prepare to quit yourselves like men, for the time of your ordeal is at hand.' A long time has been allowed us for preparation. Twelve years have been given to us, and in those years we have modified and remodified the effete voluntary 6ystem: we have invented several new names and a new costume. But as regards efficiency and as regards proparedness for war we aro practically where we were in 1900. "As a European Power, as a Continental Power, we do not exist—for war. Our Army as a belligerent factor in European politics is almost a negligible quantity. The Empire is at all times practically defenceless beyond its first line. Such an Empire invites war. Its assumed security amid the armaments of Europe, and now of Asia, is insolent and provocative. "The Territorial Force is now an acknowledged failure—a failure in disciplino, a failure in numbers, a failure in equipment, a failure in energy. Unless I am misinformed, the majority of the Territorials are now in favour of compulsion. "I have commanded your armies in peace and in war. I say to you, the young men of this city and of thie nation, that your enfranchisement is not complete until you have become soldiers ns well as citizens, prepared to attest your manhood on the battlefield as well as at the election booths."