The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-01-31 00:00:00

TILE GERMAN ARMY BILL.

It is stated that the new German Army Bill decrees
that for seven years from April, 1881, the army on a
peace footing shall consist ot 427,270 men, as against
9111 present number of 401,659. The increase proposed
m
Uin conformity with the law which enacts that the
he y shall be equal to 1 per cent, of the population.
reserves of the first class, however, will be re-
quired to take part in the regular military exercises,
which occupy altogether about twenty weeks in the
,Year. .A. total of about twenty millions sterling may
De estimated, as the pecuniary cost of araiaments in
GernAny.

. Vie Times of Tuesday commented upon the proposed
increase in the German army in a leader, from which
We extract the following :

et.. • . If the German Army Bill obtains, as it certainly will
%lie assent of the representatives of the several German states
and also of the German nation, 9,000 more recruits will have
to be enlisted every year. The increase in the war strength
Is, estimated at 90,000 men with 360 guns. When the unit
h f t
Modern armies is a hundred thousand, instead he
former ten thousand or five thousand, a score or thousands
More or less may seem a triviality not worth a moment's
alarm. On the contrary, it is the very bulk of the military
viesabLtshments Es they are which renders any increase
elDecially formidable. The peace establishment retains under
the banners four hundred thousand soldiers continually. No
sooner has one large section of the population been
drilled and pipe,clayed then it is passed back into the nation,
and new recruits are swept in to supply its place. Ninety
thousand more regular soldiers will now be added to mea-
sure the resistance Germany could oppose to an enemy. The
Yield Reserve and the Landsturm have still to be added to
the total. With them the empire has been able to calculate
on the trained protection of some two millions and a half of
soldiers. But fear has seized upon Prince Bismarck and
Marshal Moltke. They look arodud them, and by the help
of dexterous arithmeticians discover the portentous fact that
Trance and Russia could place in line several hundreds of
thousands more.
Military statisticians demonstrate that France has three
hundred battalions more than Germany, and that Russia
has five hundred and sixty. It seems to follow obviously that
the German Empire mast add some scores of thousands of
men to its regiments, and £B5O 000 to its military budget.
On the same principle Prussia ought to have succumbed to
Austria and her German allies in the war of Sadowa ; the
Tint Napoleon should never have beaten Austria and Prussia
at Austerlitz; France and Eneland should not have been
Victors in the Crimea. If Providence is generally on
the aide of the stronger battalions the strength is to
be measured not by the multiplication table. Human
forces are to be weighed in calculating the issues
of war, not numbered. Reason and common sense shrink
from believing that an intelligence like that of Prince
Bismarck has been guided in the pending Army Bill by a
determination to array as many soldiers in the field as the
Powers of which he Di supposed to be jealous or apprehen-
sive. That is the thought which moved our Paris Corre-
spondent yesterday when he suggested that possible French
and Russian enmity could not have been in the Chancellor's
mind when he devised his new measure. me official
statement which accompanies the Bill refers, it is true,
to she danger of an armed coalition against the Empire.
Thence it proceeds to contrast the German army with
the armies of Russia and France. The necessary infer-
ence is that Russia and France are the States of which
the German Cabinet fears the combination against its
Interests. But, it is said in Paris, "France and Russia are
held up only to conceal the truth ; it is not an argun
me
F t,
but a screen." To any one who understands French feeling,
It is hard to understand how a German statesman may not
Perceive that France will n o
ot be so foolish as bring down
Upon herself the iron heel of Germany by an open alliance
With Russia. It by no means follows that, should Germany
Involve herself In international difficulties remote from tee
Trench border, Frenchmen might not snatch the occasion
t_aer to recover their provinces and their self-esteem i
Is no disguise of French hopes; and so far an additional
motive is furnished why Germany should seek to live a
peace with the world at large. It rests with the Chancellor
himself whether France shall or shall not stir against him.
Convinced as he must be of this, it is inferred that be is not
likely to be troubling himself with difficult and costly ex-
tensions of his military establishments to guard against A
peril he can better otherwise avert. The Paris theory ii
that the Army Bill is only part of an ambitious rcheme for
the defence of the German Empire, not by actual war, but
by the erection of Berlin or Varzin into a centre of Monar-
chical and Conservative sentiment " affrighted by,
Republican contagion and underground demsgogism '
We can perfectly appreciate the feeling by which
It appears unintelligible to Paris that the Minister
of Germany should be more than pretending terror of
the superiority of the French to the German army.
'Yet we find it more inconceivable that a statesman abso-
lutely free from party attachments and traaitions should
have projected a second Holy Alliance, and should for the
Purpose be adding a hundred thousand men to his war
strength. We are compelled, however reluctantly, to agree
that the Prince is speaking mere truth when be allunes to
S possible Franco-Russian league as hisj ratification for
Piling fresh burdens on the shoulders of the heavily-laden
German nation, lie knows an well as any Englishman
that the gain he contemplates in men will be more than
neutralised in the end by a loss in national elasticity.
But deliberately and in cold blood he gives the nations
notice that, it they please to scatter bombshells and
Powder over Europe, he will join in the sowing. France
and Russia may amuse themselves by trying whether they
43&11110t outpace Germany without challenging her to a race;
Germany win retaliate by keeping them to their full speed.
It is a race in which the competitors must run till they
drop. It will not be Prince Bismarck's fault if they do not
die of exhaustion on the course. Not war so much as peace,
as Europe knows peace in these days, is thought of in this
desperate struggle. Neighbouring nations scowl at one
another across the Rhine and the Baltic, wondering each
how long the other will endure without a collapse or a blow,
and each decided not to give the advantage of the first
lunge.
Were not the spectacle horrible, it would be ridiculous.
Not monarchs and statesmen, but the nations who suffer,
are the culprits tor this outrageous confusion of means with
ends, of the well-being and security for which armies are
Maintained with the armies themselves, as if batteries and
Uniforms were something supremely enjoyable and
admirable. Frenchmen, as all Europe knows, though
Our Correspondent shows singular eourace in putting the
Miserable truth into words, are, from tie I,lgh(t to 4he
lowest, only biding their time. They take it for granted
that "the mission and duty of France consist in
Waiting for the propitious moment, and in seizing it
" resolutely and with prudence." That M. Gambetta repro-
Mute both the power of waiting and the determination
never to forget makes his strength, as the contrary made
M. Waddington's weakness. So long as the nation possesses
NI soul in clogged quietness, it feels aimed that It cannot

be attacked except at its own time. The German nation is
as resolute to keep its gains as France is to recover her losses.
German Liberals, who are neither Republicans nor
Socialists, have no cause to love Prince Bismarck. He uses
them when convenient to himself, and throws them aside
when other tools offer. Yet the National Liberals, while
they deplore the necessity, echo Prince Bismarck in pro-
claiming it an article of patriotic faith "to be mistrustful."
They assume that the German Parliament, both the Federal
Council and the Reichstag, has no alternative but to pass
the present Bill, grievous as must be the burden. England,
at least, has a conscience void of offence in regard to this
great issue between the two leading nations of Continental
Europe. Englishmen wish so well to both nations tlitat it
pains them even to have to weigh the chances of victory
for one or other in the anticipated struggle. They fore-
saw with Pity the doom of perpetual " mistrust " which
the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine could not but
lay upon the German people. They foresee the all but
insuperable extent of the task France is imoostng on
herself in determining to regain her severed territories.
Tiles Perceive only too clearly that, victorious or van-
quished, she will never balance her gains and her losses
But they understand also that it is simple waste of time to
meson with Germany on the folly of the past or with France
on the folly of the future. What, however, is more unin
telligible to them even than the delusion that national
strength consists in se many square miles more or less of
soil is the nature of the duel which the two States are now
fighting against one another. In it the one thing
positive is that each must suffer. The one thing to
hope is that both may not sicken to death together.
We hardly know haw much consolation to derive
from the possibility that all this network of mar-
tial apparatus which is strangling Europe may never, after
all, be brought out of its arsenals. The particular measure
which is now exercising the mind of the Continent cannot
come into operation for a couple of years. The seven years
during which the Imperial army must be kept on its footing
will not expire until the end of 1881. But meanwhile the
existing law of military service is sufficient to take the life
out of German energy and enterprise. France, on her side,
may be assured that, though she bears the infliction
with less apparent difficulty, she is throwing her-
self back as much as her rival in the long race
of international prosperity. Both for one and the
other the peculiarly miserable feature of the present
condition of things is that, whether the final event be peace
or war, the loss to the nations must be almost equally
heavy. Should it happen, as it very well may happen,
before the exact hour has struck for Frenchman, and
German, and Russian to meet in deadly collision, that the
tide of European interests and anxieties has set in an
absolutely different direction from Alsace and Lorraine, or
even the Black Sea and the Balkan, the rival States
will still have to pay the charges of their obsolete
precautions. Should war come, there will be added to all
its grevious load the cost of preparations which will prob-
ably have had as little as possible to do with the result. A
nation never loses in the end by putting on such armour as
renders it self-reliant and self-respecting. It can never
reimburse itself out of the spoils and glory of war for turn-
ing its country into a camp. What Europe needs is a states-
man who will have the courage to take the first step towards
reminding it that nations and armies are not convertible
terms. When Prince Bismarck has not that courage we
feel it is superfluous to search farther.

THE PROPOSED ARCTIC EXPEDITION.
Commander John P. Cheyne, R.N., responded on
Saturday to an invitation from the members of the
Royal Artillery Institution, at Woolwich, to explain
his scheme for the scientific exploration and discovery
of the North Pole, by means of a steamer, sledges,
and balloons. He 'gated that Lord Derby and six
members of Parliament had joined the central com-
mittee. The hon. members are—Sir Charles Dilke,
Mr. J. H. Pnleston, Mr, William T. Charley, Mr.
William Gordon, Dr. Cameron, and Colonel Alexander.
The plan sketched is as follows :
If the estimated cost—viz., £3o,ooo—ie forthcoming,
the expedition will start in June. Her Majesty's
Government will be asked to lend their steam store-
ship Discovery,for the purpose. It is also in contem-
plation that a shooting party in connection with Cook's
tours will accompany the steamer to some of the
Arctic bays, where there is some splendid shooting—
wild ducks flying about there in flocks of sixty at
a time, four or five flocks often passing every
minute. Commander Cbeyne purposes wintering the
first year in as high a latitude as possil le. The
sledges will start about March 30, 1881. When the
sledges are baffled by obstacles, recourse will be had to
balloons. These are expected to start about June next
year, at which time the sun will be shining in the
Arctic regions "day and night." The balloons will
be. inflated at starting by passing steam through iron
filings, and will be afterwards manipulated by means
of a supply of pure condensed hydrogen. Three
balloons will be emploped. each having a lifting
power of 1 ton to 1 ton. The balloon party will con-
sist of seven persons, with water and provisions for 51
days; but it is expected that they will reach the
North Pole in from 30 to 40 hours, after leaving the
sledges. The explotiog party will remain at
the North Pole about a week for scientific
observation, and will despatch a balloon to Russia
for the purpose of telegraphing the news to Eng-
land. The intelligent*, it is thought, can be con-
veyed from the North Pole, yid St. Petersburg, to
London, within three days. The Arctic region; will
be photographed from the balloon every hour. the dis-
tance to be traversed by the balloon being estimated at
500 miles. Mr. Coxwell ia to explain the balloon arrange-
ments at the Mansion-house meeting. The propesal
to pay out a small telegraphic wire from the balloon in
transitu, so as to join the :ship with the N orth Pule, has
been abandoned.
It was stated that the Duke of Cambridge had con-
sented to allow military officers to act on Antic com-
mittees, and, at the tonclusien of the address, it was
arranged that a committee—forming the 60th of the
local commiteees thronghout the country—should be
formed.