Sir Edward Grey, speaking at Newcastle on Monday at the
distribution of prizes to the 3rd Battalion Northumberland Volunteers, took occasion to make some sensible remarks on militarism. He hoped that the influence of the County Associations would bring all classes together in support of the Territorial Army, and induce employers and employed to make sacrifices to promote Volunteering in every way. He deprecated loose talk about militarism. There were people who wore afraid that to work any Army scheme with enthusiasm involved the spread of militarism, by which they meant that if a man had learnt to shoot he would then desire to make an enemy in order to go to war with him. He did not believe that any spirit of that kind existed in this country
or on the Continent. "It was a laudable and patriotic thing for a man to qualify himself for the defence of his country, and had nothing to do with a desire for war, or hostile intentions against any other nation." He did not think the extreme anti-militarist view had any hold in this country, because its adoption would expose us to the risk of conscription. We were the freest country in the world, as we had so few obligations imposed on us by the State ; but that being so, it was our duty to the State voluntarily to undertake such obligations as the needs of the State required. He appealed to them to support Volunteering in no alarmist spirit, but as one of the obligations incumbent on citizens of an Empire of vast magnitude and great complexity.
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