MILITARY SERVICE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 41, 18 October 1913, Page 4

MILITARY SERVICE.

The new President of France lias writ-j ten a book in which he justifies compulsory military training on the i grounds that the State makes justice, accessible to all. and in return for its: protection requires rts sons to givei their services to the State, so that! they may be able to defend it in tinn | of need. .M. Poincare puts forward: the value of this training in building; (character and giving Frenchmen a ! sense of unity, and holds that the, effort demanded of the young .French-j man, the regularity of life imposed,! the machinery to which he is bound i —all remind him that he is part of a, whole, a unit in the national collect-j ivity, a living cell of that great organism, his mother country. Sometimes, perhaps, he will find the discipline a little hard. But on reflection ho will accept it cheerfully as the most sacred of civic duties. An army without discipline would he an army ruined. To obey our hierarchial supeiiors in all they command us to do, for the good of the service and the execution of military rules, is merely to conform with the laws of the nation’s life. As citizens and men we remain free; we may well make a temporary sacrifice of a portion of that liberty in the defence of our country.