FRENCH SERVICE INCREASE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 179, 29 July 1913, Page 5

FRENCH SERVICE INCREASE.

A SUPFOBTER ETAEBEB. ("Sydney Sun" Special Service.) LONDON, July 28. M. Leuevre, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, who supported the Three Years' Service Bill. wc3 stabbed in the head while addressing his constituents at Troiiville, Northern France.

The European panic having passed, the wave of patriotism which swept over France at the time that Germany increased .her army appears to have expended itself, if not entirely then to a very considerable degree. At first the call to arms, which took the form of an additional three years' service, excited the spectacular sense of young France, and even of greybeards. But now that there is no prospect of immediate conflict with the German legions, both the young and older generations are commencing to hark back upon their first offer of personal sacrifice. In October next 2,000 young Frenchmen would, under the old law. have been released from military service, and be free to return to their homes. Instead, they will have to spend another year in barracks,' a year that may have to be passed in the drudgery and routine of a training which they have already mastered. The leaders of the Internationals have found in their passing irritation most excellent seed-beds for their disruptive socialism. France is honeycombed with experimental political parties. Thr civic motto of Paris is "Fluctuat nee mergitur"— always tossed on tempestuous waves, vet never submerged. Tt voices the political feelings of the whole of France, and the Internationals have been able to push their propaganda even within the barracks, where the most rigorous discipline is exacted. The recent incipient revolts represent the disaffection spread by the ■Socialists amongst the men who would he at liberty to return to civil life at the end of the year, if it were not for the Emtrjpncy Law, which asks of them rurther self-."acrifice pro rata. liinisters minimise these outbreaks, -but those who are in a position to judge, and who arp not called upen to disguise the truth, consider the outlook /cry disquieting, because if Internationalism has got a firm footing in the army anything is possible in a fiiglity democracy like that of France.