M. Comely, of the Paris Figaro, has published a very
thoughtful commentary upon the military proposals of the British Government. He admires Lord Lansdowne for rejecting all proposals for conscription, not so much, he says, because that system reduces liberty, as because it tends to kill originality and enterprise in the young. They are all drilled, he intimates, into a pattern. " The mechanism of conscription," M. Comely declares, "outs the wings of all initiative, transforms the tiller of the soil into a working man or servant, and the young men of the middle class into dead sea fruit." The "incontestable English superiority is derived from the inferiority inflicted on the Continent by this military service." That is strong, and new, testimony to the value of our system, though it must be remembered that our discipline differs from the French, and kills originality even in the Army mach less, while in the Navy it does not kill it at di We ace no friends of conscription, but we believe
universal physical and military trainieg alight be so organised as to develop the minds of those subjected to it nearly as much as it develops their muscles and their eyesight.
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