LATER EMPIRES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 5 October 1911, Page 4

LATER EMPIRES.

The writer continues:—Let us leave the examples of antiquity and iM.me down t) U.ter empiics, alway ivnemberir.g 1 hi-1 wr'i-'d eiiivri's a'h'-v:vs arise or th? ruins i* li'nr -, :eiteces.vjrs. :n u that at no time in t'io world's history h.-.vii there ever boon at one and the same moment two empires of equal pre-emin-ence. During the sixteenth century Spain became the greatest and wealthiest power in the world;, she possessed the strongest navies and armies' and the richest colonies; she had deprived the Turks of the command of the Mediter-

rancan at Lepanto; she had discovered and colonised the New World; and she had consolidated her own possessions in Europe until she emerged as the one great continental Power. But all her later wars were fought with mercenaries, and. when the Netherlandish provinces of the Spanish Empire revolted against Philip TT. the war which ensued eventually saw the military power of Spain almost totally destroyed by the national levies of the Dutch. The wealth and the colonies of Spain fell into Dutch hands. Pursuing a commercial policy, and confiding in the impregnable position of their water-girt and strongly fortified provinces, the supremacy of their navy, and their glorious military past, the Dutch neglected their land armies. The defence of the country was left to paupers and foreign mercenaries, the Dutch were attacked by Louis XIV., and the Netherlands, which, when weak and poor, had, with the national army, resisted Spain during 80 years of war, were over-run by French armies in less than 40 days. The Dutch world empire crumbled to pieces, "England became the heir of the Netherlands, and New Amsterdam was re-christened New York; but had the Dutch possessed a national policy and a national army the world might have become Dutch instead of Anglo-Saxon. The understanding of the possibilities of a nation in arms led to the assumption by Frederic the Great of the position in Europe occupied by France under Louis XIV., and the neglect of a study of the problem by his successors enabled Napoleon, with a national army, to ride roughshod over Europe. It has been the lack of a national army which has always debarred England from asserting her position on the Continent, and it is not too much to say that if England had possessed an army as well as a navy at the close of the eighteenth century Europe and the world would have been saved the horrors of the long-drawn-out Napoleonic wars. In the intoxication of success France neglected her army by allowing ''substitutes" for national service, with the result that she bought her experience anew nt the cost of Sedan; 'Prussia, with a national army comprising most of her best, and not her worst, citizens, was enabled, after a few months of war, to not only break the power of France but to re-establish on a firm basis the Imperial state of Ormany. It must be remembered that the army.'which comprises mily a portion of the citizens of a country, generally comprises the worst portion; that is. those who find it more, liffieult to make their way in other walks of life. National armies in the Mst have been irresistible, whether they belong to small or big countries, and the strong resistance of which they arc capable cannot be better illustrated than by the fact that in South Africa the lVier'i (who were practically a nation in arms) were able for nearly three years to hold .heir own against the might of England. The Swiss showed, by a cultivation of latioual feeling, that'even the smallest ■oimtry is able to successfully maintain ts independence against much stronger ! oes; and in New Zealand, even with he present limited population, it: would >e very diliicult for any outside power .<> make much headway after the comnimity had been universally trained to ;lie use of arms; and looking to the fact

tlisil Hit' fall of every country which had once boon great has, without, any excc|ition, been till! result of a neglect or a refusal on the part of its citizens to personally shoulder arms for its defence, the position of those who. from sentimental or other reasons, oppose military training here is absolutely untenable in the light of the world's history.