facilitates pacific intercourse;

favour uninterrupted locomotion and interNeutralisation national intercourse, and which prevent the possibility of casual breaches in one or the other, through events not capable of being foreseen, distinctly tend to promote commerce, international harmony, and permanent Peace. Circumstances of the reverse kind similarly promote and sustain Wars.

and impedes military movements.

But, further, as in the case of such territories as those of Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxemburg, it is of the highest importance to interpose vast barriers to the march and operations of opposing armies, by which not only are hostile acts checked and impeded on both sides, but a standing protest is made, in some quarters at least, in favour of Peace. This prevents what might, otherwise, not be an impossibility,-the unrestricted sweeping of armies over the whole of Europe, and a general substitution of a reign of War for one of Peace.

SECTION VII.

OF STANDING ARMIES.

As though in anticipation of the present War between Russia and Turkey, and since the date of the War between France and Germany, the constitution and organisation of the armies of all the leading European States have, of late, undergone a decisive change. The modes of warfare, especially as dependent on scientific inventions and economical applications, have been submitted to innovating alterations, which are closely parallel with each stride in the march of industrial progress. Even the laws of War are being subjected to a novel process of systematic revision, and are being taught to conform to the demands of a better calculated utility, if not of an advancing morality. It could not have been expected that facts so sudden and so universal would elude general attention, and, as a matter of fact, they have not. Military writers, politicians, economists and social philosophers, have based all sorts of auguries for the future on the character and magnitude of the new European armies, and, no doubt, many of these speculations are sound, and will have a fruitful bearing on practice.

Recent changes

in military

methods.

Their bearing on the frequency, or the extinction, of War.

But there is one aspect of these changes which has either wholly escaped attention, or has met with far less attention than it has deservedthat is, the bearing of all these changes on the reduction of the frequency of Wars, or on the total abolition of War.

It is impossible to conceive that changes so vast, so widely ramified, and so vital, as those now affecting the preparations for War, and the actual conduct of Wars, can be without any influence in generally predisposing nations for War or Peace; and, even if there are those who regard all hopes for a time of permanent Peace as utopian, it is not denied in any quarter that there are general causes which produce both Peace and War, and that these causes can, to some extent, be controlled so as to foster the one and not the other. With a view, then, partly, to prognosticate the increasing tendencies in Europe towards Peace or War, and, partly, to direct sympathy and guide practical action in some directions rather than in others, it is worth while accurately to estimate the real nature of the extensive military changes which have been accomplished, and to trace their probable influence on the reduction of the frequency of Wars.

The changes in the constitution and organisation of armies are still going forward, and in some countries, as England, have only just

commenced. It is, however, well recognised in constitutional countries that the modes of filling, and of controlling, the army belong as much to the field of general public discussion as to that of military experience, and that even distinct and immediate military advantages must not be sought at too heavy a price to public liberty, or to the permanent interests of Peace.

In solving the problems of new organisation which may yet be presented, it may thus be a highly relevant consideration to reflect how far the changes which have recently been brought about have increased or diminished the chance of recurrent Wars. There are, probably, few persons, nowadays, who would have the hardihood to deny that, other things being equal, that course is to be preferred which, on the whole, is likely to promote, and not to endanger, general Peace.

It may, too, prove a matter of consolation that even those institutions and practices which are most disastrous in the present, and ought least to be maintained or copied, do, nevertheless, in some respects, operate in a way which must, finally, bring about their own annihilation. Thus, even some of the most alarming phases of modern national life may, when strictly scrutinized, be found rife with hopefulness for a not very distant future. Where the prospect is, for the present, the most gloomy, and the only

Methods of

ing.

lesson to be learnt from looking around is what to avoid, there may, on a closer view, be presented the vision of a stable and pacific future, of which the longest interval of Peace in past history is only a flickering image.

It will be convenient to distribute the subject under the following four heads: (1) Modes of recruiting for the army; (2) the size of armies in Peace and in War; (3) the organisation and internal constitution of armies; (4) modes and instruments of warfare.

1. Modes of Recruiting for the Army.There are three generic modes which are Army Recruit possible for replenishing the ranks of the army, though each mode admits of numerous variations. There is, first, the mode of depending on the ordinary laws of supply and demand, and of trusting to the competition of the army with other branches of remunerative industry. This mode is still pursued in England, though much fault has been found with its operation, and proposals of one kind and another have been made to alter it. It has been said that the class of soldiers supplied belongs to the dregs of the population; that the number of deserters is enormous; and that, depending as the supply does on the general conditions of trade, voluntary enlistment is too precarious for a nation to rely upon at all times.

Voluntary enlistment in England.