"ANTI-MILITARISM" IN FRANCE. T HE French military authorities are certainly justified
in punishing severely those who preach anti- militarism, especially in the form approved by MM. Jaures and nerve and their followers. They practically advise the recruits on the outbreak of war to direct their rifles against the Government instead of against the enemy. That is clearly an incitement to treason, if there be such a thing as treason, and treason in its most dangerous form, that of overt civil war. It is, in fact, a direct adhesion to the invader, and can be defended only on the argument that armed resistance to those who injure us is a crime of the first magnitude. We cannot, however, but feel some doubt whether the penalties are not the result of officers' wounded amour propre rather than of deliberate statesmanship. No such incitements can have any influence except with the few fanatics who in using them will discredit instead of popularising the Socialist creed. That party would have done far better, from its own point of view, to denounce and resist, through Parliamentary action, the use of the soldiery in civil contests—in putting down strikers, for in;stance, and the like—than in advising submission to invaders. The French, no doubt, were shocked into a new abhorrence of war by the events of 1870, which destroyed the conviction, derived from the Napoleonic Wars, that they were the most efficient soldiers in the world, and left in its stead, for that generation at least, a secret doubt whether war meant for them anything but suffering unredeemed by any glory, and by very little of "the rapture of the strife.', But with that very change has come an increase in the feeling that they must be always better prepared for war, and that such prepara- tion should take the form of, the universal service, careful training, and cruel strictness of discipline which, as they believe, had given the victory to their enemies. For thirty years they have been building up a new and stronger army, and no great irritation has been caused by the severity of the discipline, which is now much stricter, in spite of the humane relaxations of recent years ; and the immense expense which always accompanies the reorganisation of an army has been borne without complaint, even when the taxes interfered with the household prosperity which is the first object of all French social life. The French Socialists might, we imagine, have protested with great effect against the oppressions of barrack life, might have democratised the status of their officers by introducing the principle of election, and might gradually, by abandoning the search for colonies, have made of their Army a purely defensive force, a Swiss Army, in fact, upon a gigantic scale.
A reform upon these lines would have been all the easier because in France one of the two great motives for war is almost entirely absent. Those motives are the attraction of expansion, whether it arises from greed or from the necessity of providing territory for an ever-, increasing population, and the incurable fear of subjuga- tion. The French do not increase ; they do not need more territory for subsistence, and as a majority they dread and dislike the practice of colonisation. They wish to remain in Franca, not to secure larger lives by foreign conquest. At this moment, as all observers report, an order for service in North Africa is regarded by the regiments affected with a kind of horror, which is expressed with even greater intensity by the districts in which such a regiment is recruited. The objection to acquire colonies is publicly expressed by voters belonging to very different parties, and this with regard both to sub-tropical and tropical acquisitions. It is doubtful whether France would consent to purchase a vast estate like the Congo or the Philippines, and it is nearly certain that a plebiscite would sanction the exchange of all the French colonies, including even Algeria and Tunis, for the two Continental provinces of which the country was deprived in 1870. The greed of territory which influences countries so widely different as Germany and America—the States long for Lower Cali- fornia—may be considered in France almost extinct ; and though no doubt the passion for glory might still stimulate them to non-defensive wars, glory, until they have found a great general, will not be considered an asset to be sought eagerly or with any certainty of acquisition. It is only from the sense of duty and a traditional pride that they are expending men and treasure in the defence of their undoubted primacy of right to maintain their privileged position in Morocco. The other motive, however—fear of invasion and defeat—remains as strong as ever, and the Socialist leaders in disregarding that fear irritate their whole population into a doubt whether Socialists can be loyal. It is very easy to preach that such fear is unreason- able, or that the world has got beyond wars of conquest ; but Frenchmen remember their history, are as deeply moved, perhaps, as any other people by race distrusts, and recollect with angry keenness that only a generation ago German soldiers crossed France as exulting conquerors. Cosmopolitanism is still to them, as to the inhabitants of any other country, only a beautiful dream, and they would consider disarmament for an abstract idea of brotherhood a shameful folly. We are unable to believe, therefore, that even among the working classes, and still less among the peasantry, the set of ideas described as "anti-militarism " can take any serious hold. To be welcome, those ideas must have taken possession of the whole world, or, at all events, of its white peoples ; and they will no more give up their necessary military organisation than they will give up their claim to the separateness and independence of their own dwelling-houses. This is in no way a discredit to the French, for the same emotion influences all the advanced populations of the world. If none had any fear of the foreigner, none yeould submit to the compulsory enlistment which is maintained to prevent invasion, or even to the heavy taxes which seem to be the only alternative for some sort of compulsion. We are very proud, justly proud, of our Fleet and its incalculable strength ; but if there were no possibility of attack from any quarter even the Fleet would slowly die away under the pressure of the argument that it involved the expenditure of huge sums which might be more wisely employed. Socialism will produce .many mischiefs, but we do not think it will produce universal disarmament, or, indeed, disarmament in any one country in which its dogmas may seem to be obtaining acceptance. Many terrible things will be risked in order to try the experiment of collectivism, but among them, we think, we need not fear that advice like that of M. Jaures and M. Hervd will obtain any dangerous amount of adhesion, least of all in France, where the people certainly do not believe that their country cannot offer attractions to a foe, or fancy that a foreigner could by any possibility rule them better than they can rule themselves.
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