A STRONG MAN ARMED.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 5, 19 January 1912, Page 2

A STRONG MAN ARMED.

Under the above title, Major W. P. Drury deals very strongly with the question of Imperial defence in the “Empire Magazine,” He does not mince matters. He points to the danger across the North Sea, and declared that the crowned head of that great, virile, organising, and resolute nation across the German Ocean has recently declared to his people that the trident—our national emblem of naval supremacy—must be transferred to their fist. Major Drury, however, finds' no quarrel with Germany for this. “Necessity,” he says, "no lees than ambition, is i driving her ever onwards towards the inexorable goal—the necessity of an amazingly virile nation for the elbow-room and breathing space of Colonial expansion.” And speaking of our peril, Major Drury says :—“All the arousing patriotism of the Empire will never teach a man at the eleventh hour to shoot straight with a rifle that kills at 3000 yards, to i say nothing of that discipline without which the finished marksman in the army is worthless in the day of battle. It has been said that the Briton is the only male in Europe who has not learnt to defend the female of his species. It is that reproach on the young manhood of England which the advocates of universal military training are seeking to remoyp. Until some such truly democratic measures become the law of the land, England’s peril from her universally drilled rival must needs grow deadlier every day." This article is forcefully illustrated by a picture showing a vast crowd watching a football match on a Saturday , afternoon. This picture bears the inscription, “England expects that every man this day will do his duty,” and an editorial note at the foot of the illustration says :—“lf an invader landed in England on a Saturday afternoon, he would find several millions of Englishmen, quite untrained in arms, and quite defenceless, engaged in watching football matches. There could be no more lamentable comment in the way in which Nelson’s noble exhortation has been forgotten.”