A Democratic Army.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13421, 19 October 1907, Page 3 (Supplement)

A Democratic Army.

THE SWISS SYSTEM.

'. (By Clarence Hook, in Home Paper,) The" mixed Committee w^uch'is to visit Switzerland in September' in order to estudy the military system of the country will probably come across some surprises. Their eyes will be opened to the spectacle of a democratic nation which agrees to sacrifice a certain amount of each man's time and trouble to the defence of his country. Again, they will find a remarkably cheap army; for it costs the Swiss less than £2,000,000 a year to keep up a fighting force of more than half a, million.: Finally, they will find it difficult to discover an army at all, since there is hardly such a phenomenon in Switzerland as a professional soldier. . The only people' in Switzerland who mate the army their profession are the Commander-in-Ghief. (who is appointed by the Federal Assembly) and the Federal Staff. These form the brain of the amiy; There are no Field Marshals; there is but one General; a man who has reached the position t>f 'Commander-in-Chief. He gets two pounds a. day. But the Committee will doubtkss discover that every Swiss who is not a cripple or a dwarf or an invalid is a soldier in mufti. As the object of this mixed Committee is mainly to study the working of the mili tary system in relation to social and industricd problems, let me outline that system. '",„'■

UNIVERSAL SERVICE. Every man is a' soldier,: unless unable to perform a ■ .soldier's duties, in which case he musfc pay his scot—from six ■" to three thousand francs a year, according to his means. Switzerland, the home of democracy, claimr; to be the first European nation to introduce universal liability to military service; for when the men of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were in the early days of the cantons, subjected to Austrian oppression, the order was given that every able-bodied man uhould accustom himself to the use of arms. So that tinv nation of many nationalities catches its boys at the ifg« of ten and gives them drill—for fun—in the public tschool playground. Bub at seventeen the Swiss youth enters on hiu responsibilities, and from seventeen to fifty he in liable for service in defenco of his country; nor even at fifty does tin* liability cease if he be capable of duty—as butcher, baker, or veterinary surgeon or otherwise.

There are three divisions of the Swiss

Army and of the Swiss man's life. The Federal forces consist of the Auszug, the Landwher, and the Landstunn. At twenty every able-bodied youth becomes a member of the Auszug, and has to give forty-live days to military training. It is a small slice; even allowing for the time for preparation and return it means bub a couple of months, the ahal of the ordinary Oxford undergraduate's Long Vacation. Thence to his thirty-second birthday the Swiss young man has to put in sixteen days of training every other year. And the competent man ■with a napkin at the London restaurant may tell you—as he has told me—-in answer to the question about his holiday:—•

"First, I: do my duty." He is going back, to drop the napkin and pick up the rifle. ANNUAL TRAINING. -

; At thirty-two the Swiss man pauses into 'the.Landwe.hr, or First Reserve; yet still he must keep his hand in.: For a dozen years the demand of. the State is lightened, and lie must put in nine days of service in every four years, which is a week end or two of a London stock--broker. ' Even when he; is forty-four the Swiss man is not quit of his duty to the nation. There is always a possibility of the call, for arms—or the man. His service in the Landsturm ends with his fiftieth birthday; but in time of need his name is on record, and if.'he can do anything for his country he will be called upon to do it. There are many exemptions, since the civil and religious business u£ the State must proceed, 1 and the basic principle is that every man shall do his duty to the .State. Railway-men, telegraphmen, hospital officials, doctors l , pastors, and such like "have their early exemption, for they must, pursue' their duties undisturbed.

If you will reflect upon the preceding, paragraphs you will suspect that the price is; low' in time and money to pay. for a nation of men who have decided that German, French, Italian, Romanseh matters little —only the nation counts. Switzerland is not Great Britain and one may\ perhaps draw but vague lessons from a land-bound country that has no problems of'tlie-.sea td face.' But it has a citizen army, a : citizen army that "is almost invisible to the summer visitor, though on Sundays and holidays the'.'visitor- may be annoyed by the crack of the rifle. at the range that is never very far from his resort. It is the echo of the William Tell legend. You may see the men. of the neighbourhood—the major side by side swith the recruit—firing in the Sehutzgraben of the commune, voluntarily spending ■ their holiday / afternoon, in 'perfecting themselves in the--use of-'the ■'■ rifle.

• No soldier is put to any ..personal expense when he is called upv for 'service. When going for 'drill the Violdkr in uniform travels free, and so long :as ho acts as a soldier his necessary, expenses are paid. In time of war or during manoeuvres every citizen is expected to provide food and.lodging■'-.'for..such number of soldiers as his dwelling '.and .meiins allow. Should lie prefer not to have Soldiers bil l leted at his housed he is obliged to'.pay into the army-chest a sum sufficient to provide lodging for them elsewhere. A OHEAP ARMY..

You seldom see a soldier in Switzerland ; you caiinot see the soldiers for the ly find r a civilian who has not given a month or two of his:;life to-.the' art of making the invader, get out, and the rest of hj% life to inviting the stranger to come in. But if any.'lapse of European courtesy should come—that courtesy that has made the holiday-gronnd of ■■ Europe neutral territory, the Swiss man will:drop his napkin and pick up : his rifle, man his mule batteriesrtkat- claniber like Hies over the mountain, and maintain his independence. You should see, at a hazard those muleborne guns borne into' positions that to a< plainsman would seem un'scaJeable. And our Committee will find that the Swiss nation in arms is an uncommonly cheap army, an army that is regarded by experts as the best organised of all in the second rank. It is a citizen army entrenched behind its native mountains, an army which contains every element of the nation, the man of wealth- and the peasant standing shoulder to shoulder. And. it is uncommonly cheap. It makes the smallest possible demand on the taxpayer, and interferes not at all with the stride of the business man or the mechanic. It contains no class prejudices, for there arc no crack regiments, and each man is trained to the task for which he is best suited, so that the son of a rich man may graduate as a groom, and the son of a groom work himself to the position of the only General—thfe. Coumiander-in-Chief who rulles the citizen, army on. a salary of two pounds a day. Switzerland probably does not lose twopence a year on its army. It probably gains in national physique.