regular army, a large part dear. No wonder that а of which consists of partlytrained recruits and boys under twenty years of age, an army which might on occasion mobilise and put into the field an effective force of 150,000 men provided with modern appliances of war. Behind this we have the Territorial Army, the state of which was given last July in a Return moved for by Lord Newton. It was then 1762 officers and 41,371 men below its establishment.1 That is below the minimum which we were told was consistent with safety. There were over 98,000 non-commissioned officers and men below twenty years of age, and out of of the whole 260,000 over 62,000 were serving on a one year's engagement. From this Return it appears that in July last there were nearly 68,000 officers and men, rather more than one quarter of the whole force, who had never fired а recruit's course of musketry. And what is the course of musketry? One hour on the rifle-range, firing twentythree rounds of ball ammunition, supplemented by firing miniature (toy) ammunition in the shooting - gallery. The whole military training of this force consists of a maximum of a fortnight in camp and a few drills in winter. And it is these officers and these men to whom it is proposed to entrust the defence of everything that this nation holds recent writer in 'The Times should have held that "it would be little short of murder to put those untrained men and uneducated, inexperienced officers into the field against the skilled army of Germany." German policy is the continuation of the policy of Prussia, initiated by Frederick the Great. From the day when he brought about the partition of Poland it has been a ruthless policy, regardless of treaties, based upon Frederick the Great's dictum, "Any war is a good war when it is undertaken for increasing the power of the State." It is thus, as we showed in our recent article on "The Development of Germany,' "2 that the war against Denmark was prepared and brought about for the sake of obtaining for Prussia the Baltic harbour of Kiel and the control of both banks of the Elbe. It was thus that was prepared and brought about the war with Austria, that made Hanover a Prussian province, and settled once for all the supremacy of Prussia in Germany. It was thus that was prepared and brought about the war with France, which made the King of Prussia Emperor of Germany, and gave to Germany Alsace and Lorraine, and an indemnity of two hundred million pounds sterling. It is thus that are being prepared those future wars which, unless England is prepared to play the part of a great nation not 1 This shortage was on 1st January 1910-1517 officers and 39,236 men. only with her navy but with a large and powerful army, will result in Germany becoming mistress of the whole of northwestern Europe, in France being reduced to a cipher dependent upon Germany, who will possess the whole seaboard of the North Sea and the English Channel from Rotterdam to Cherbourg. No matter how great our navy, it cannot save Denmark or Holland, or Belgium or France. An overwhelmingly strong navy can save our own shores from serious invasion, but it could do much more: it could enable us, if our citizens would but take upon them their proper duties, to send across the Channel to the aid of France and Belgium an army sufficiently powerful to ensure victory and avert defeat. It would enable us to preserve the balance of power in Europe, and thus make our friendship of inestimable value, a priceless possession to friendly nations. Up till about forty years ago the "Mutiny Act," as was then called that which is now the annual "Army Act," stated in its preamble that one of the objects for which an army was maintained was the preservation of the balance of power in Europe. Then, at the bidding of a statesman to whom war, no matter how just the cause, was an abomination, whose motto was "Peace at any price," that portion of the preamble disappeared, and its dis appearance marked the military decadence of our nation. Unless by the creation of an army we are prepared once again to bear our part, not only in the Councils of the Nations of Europe, but in the wars which are in defence of right against usurpation and arrogance, the selfishness of our policy can have but one result our complete isolation, and our becoming a negligible quantity in the world. Hemmed in by hostile tariffs, surrounded by contemptuous peoples, powerless to retaliate, we shall, as a nation, become a living corpse. Protected by an all-powerful navy we may continue to exist, but it will be existence only; and if in any evil hour, when the opponents of "futile armaments are in power, the complete supremacy of our navy is lost, we shall lose existence as an independent nation. even We can say with Homer Lea, "We have written this paper with a full knowledge of its bitterness. But we have done so because the time has arrived when this nation must emerge from its policy of subterfuge, and its evasion of its international responsibilities must cease. To free the nation from error it is necessary to enlighten the individual, and only to the degree that the individual will be receptive of truth can a nation be freed from that vanity which ends with national ruin. THE DEFENCE OF FORT LETEMALKUM. are SUCH manifestations considered to be inappropriate at a Cabinet Council, otherwise his hearers could not have restrained their applause as the speaker wound up his brilliant review of the naval and military situation with an even more than usually felicitous epigram. Conquering a native diffidence and modesty amounting almost to a fault in a Minister holding & position so exalted, the Home Secretary had placed his profound acquaintance with strategical principles at the disposal of his colleagues. It was not therefore without a certain sense of disappointment that the assembled statesmen understood the Premier to intimate that the subject at issue was one upon which the Committee of Imperial Defence must deliberate, and heard him go on to propose that the Cabinet should now proceed to the consideration of the deplorable misunderstanding with the Nationalist party, which had so unexpectedly arisen over the affair of the nurse of the workhouse infirmary at Knockmasilly. The question which was to be referred to the Committee of Imperial Defence arose out of an incident of a somewhat unusual character. A person who had met with the misadventure of being hanged in mistake for somebody else in the metropolis of the Nevelue the zan Republic had turned out to be a British subject; but, when invited to do so, President Furioso, the head of the State, had declined to make that substantial reparation which the Cabinet of St James's never fails to demand in the event of a misunderstanding with Governments of powers of the fourth and lower classes. The somewhat acrimonious correspondence which had ensued had reached the stage where the British Chargé d'Affaires (in absence of the Minister, withdrawn eighteen months before to signify the displeasure of H.M.'s Government at certain old-fashioned proceedings on the part of President Furioso) had received from Downing Street а communication, couched in peremptory terms, which was to be handed to the Neveluezan Foreign Minister. There had followed a sudden cessation of telegraphic communication with Nevelueza, and it had been noted as a singular circumstance that, almost simultaneously, there had been a corresponding cessation of telegraphic communication with that pearl of the Lesser Antilles, the adjacent British Island of Gobango. On a Monday, exactly a week after the peremptory communication was presumed to have reached the hands of the Neveluezan Foreign Minister, startling tidings had come to hand from Barbados. siderably taken aback by The U.S. cruiser Forktown being fired upon from the (Captain Nouse) had suddenly ramparts. arrived the previous night from Gobango, and her commander had made H.E. the Governor acquainted with the following facts. Three days before, on Thursday, at dawn, the Neveluezan warship, Impudenza Damnosa, had arrived in the harbour of Darkiestown, the capital of the island, escorting two transports full of troops. The troops, 1500 strong, had promptly landed, had occupied the telegraph station and Government buildings, had arrested the Governor and the members of the Executive and the Chief of Police, and had hoisted the Neveluezan flag with much pomp and ceremony on the esplanade. With the exception of the Yorktown, all the craft in harbour at the time were flying the British flag, and a guard had been placed on each of the vessels. The commander-in-chief of the expedition had requested the captain of the Yorktown to take no steps likely to make the British Government aware of what had occurred, but Captain Nouse had declined to give any indication as to his intentions. The coup had been admirably planned in all respects but one. The invading forces had overlooked the existence of an old defencework on the land side of Darkiestown, known as Fort Letemalkum, and when party of troops had proceeded in that direction some hours later, they had been con а It appeared that a merchant called Blobbs, holding a commission as captain in the local volunteer forces, assisted by a telegraph official of the name of Smee, had got together a party of volunteers and boy scouts, had proceeded to the fort, had seized the foodstuffs available in certain adjacent stores, had nailed a Union Jack on to what the white ants had left of an ancient flagstaff, and was holding out. Captain Nouse had admitted to H.E. the Governor of Barbados that up to the Saturday evening he had regarded these untoward events in the light of a capital joke; but when he had been just thinking of turning into his bunk that night, it had been reported to him that a youngster had come aboard who desired to see him, and a dripping boy scout had been ushered into his presence. The lad had hailed from Fort Letemalkum; he had crept out unobserved by the investing troops, had evaded the Neveluezan picquets in the town and on the quays, and had swum out to the Yorktown, regardless of the sharks which render bathing such an exciting pastime around the shores of Gobaugo. He had produced out of his hat a note from Captain Blobbs conveying the information that there was only food enough in the fort for nine more days on full rations and that only 240 rounds per rifle of small-arms ammunition remained, and which wound up with an appeal to to give the lad a vociferous The Cabinet meeting which, as already narrated, decided that the matter must be deliberated on by the Committee of Imperial Defence, met on the following (Tuesday) afternoon, the Premier seizing the opportunity of the Chief Secretary for Ireland's statement to his colleagues concerning the trouble at Knockmasilly to despatch a note to the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence with instructions to call a meeting for next day. The Chief Secretary's story was to the following effect: A vacancy having occurred in the post of nurse to the local workhouse infirmary, a certain Miss O'Flannagan, a lady understood not to be wholly devoid of personal attractions, had been selected by the Board of Guardians from amongst a number of applicants. She had been giving the utmost satisfaction to all parties for some weeks, when it had suddenly been discovered that she was not a member of the Roman Catholic persuasion — it had not occurred to anybody when the appointment was made that a person bearing the name of O'Flannagan could possibly be a heretic. A special meeting of the Board had been hastily summoned to decide what was to be done in this unforeseen emergency, and the majority of the guardians had expressed themselves very strongly in favour of dismissing the nurse. But it so happened that the Board included two Orangemen, to whom anything savour After giving directions that the messenger was to be well cared for, and was on no account to be allowed to carry out his expressed intention of swimming back to the shore and of trying to get back into the fort, Captain Nouse had summoned his two next senior officers. Prefacing his observations with the remark that mud was thicker than porter, he had declared that he was not going to see a party of Britishers, who had shown themselves white men, laid by the heels by a set of damnation Dagos because their own people did not know the mess they were in, and had announced his determination to proceed to Barbados next day and to let the pirate aboard of the Impudenza Damnosa know that such was his intention. The said pirate would peradventure decide to try and prevent the Yorktown's departure if so, they might have a lively morning. But, as it turned out, the Impudenza Damnosa had made no sign when the Yorktown had got her anchor up soon after daybreak and had steamed away for Barbados. The cruiser had lain to when she reached the far side of Gobango to lower a boat and put the boy scout ashore with a note for Captain Blobbs, the whole ship's company swarming to the side VOL. CLXXXVII.—NO. MCXXXIV. 2 H |