CONSCRIPTION IN ENGLAND.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3557, 2 May 1901, Page 3

CONSCRIPTION IN ENGLAND.

In the Paris "Eclair," M. Camille Pelletan, who is accepted as an amateur critic and expert in the matter of army reform, devotes a long article to the present situation in England. After narrating the debate, the writer continues: —"Personally I must confess that Mr Brodrick's proposal is very much like trying to square a circle. He seems disposed to abandon the third clause' of his programme. • He .allows it to be understood that he \s making the final experiment with the system now in force, and that if it fails there will bo no alternative but obligatory service. Is- this feasible? There is another question. In every country where there are glimmers of liberty, enforced service is only taken under the constraint of tragic reverses and terrible experience. In France it required the Revolution at daggers drawn with all Europe and a territory invaded by enemies who would have destroyed Paris and plunged the nation once more into "the worst despotism. To re-establish equal and obligatory conscription, till then incomplete, the terrible year of 1870 was needed. Even in Prussia, the most martial of nations, this service was only introduced in imitation of France when the monarchy was crushed at Jena. The British Jingoes are enthusiastic. They clamour for the most unbridled militarism, and treat those who are tepid with contumely. But when they have to go to barracks and learn the trade of a soldier, the Anglo-Saxon, with his habitual and hereditary notions of liberty will offer resistance to this disagreeable training."