MONEY BAGS v. ARMED MEN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8879, 13 November 1907, Page 4

MONEY BAGS v. ARMED MEN.

The September number of "Defence" contains a striking article upon the effect ot compulsory training in Switzerland. A passage in it that is full of significance is as follows: "There is growing up abroad, quite as much among the friends of Britain as among its enemies, a settled and very dangerous contempt for the one European nation in which the citizen has not even the legal right to defend his wife and childz-en in a sudden emergency of war—in which, at such a crisis, there would be no organisation possible for three-quarters of the able-bodied men, nor any chance of firing a shot in defence of their homes except in. open violation of the law of nations, and at the risk of summary execution for the offender himself, with savage reprisals against the whole community to which he belongs. All this is seen very clearly in other countries, however it may be ignored at home. And—worst perhaps of all—these efforts to ignore it cannot fail to tell steadily on the national character, and to lower the ideal of civic duty from day to day." luvery day the position grows abundantly clearer that if Great Britain continues to rely upon her money-bags, instead of armed men, to maintain Ijer supremacy, the time of disaster and disgrace cannot be far distant.