, 1875-06-26

organised men could not defeat 100, 900 or
ganised soldiers, they could defeat 10000;
but even supposing that true, how does it
bear upon the matter7 Half organised
levies cannot fight soldiers, but they can
fight other levies as badly organised as
themselves. The General invading would
merely improvise armies which, though not
equal to regulars, would be equal to the
unorganised population and the popular
strength being thus far neutralised, his
highly drilled soldiers would still remain
masters of the situation. In the American
War OF Secession, both Presidents actually
did this, huge masses Of half-drilled North
erners meeting equal numbers of half-drill-
ed Southerners,-and the war was not only
one of the ~fiercest, but one of the bloodiest
and most decisive upon record. Indeed
there can be no better answer to the theory
that disarmament secures peace than the
history of that war. No European nation
ever was, or will be, so thoroughly disarm-
ed as the North and South were when the
great war broke out. Neither had the
control of 10000 Regulars, or 500 train
ed officers, or twenty full batteries of artil-
lery 4; neither had any first-class fortresses,
neither had full a1senals, and neither had
any drilled population behind their SOL
diers, and yet the war broke out, and was
waged furiously, and involved as much
cost in blood and treasure and misery, and
as complete a defeat to the vanquished, az
any other war. We can see no ground for
believing that it would be different in
Europe, or that Bismarck, after disarma-
v,o~k would hooifofo RI nit Narpo0rn
against Frenchmen, any more than Lincoln
hesitated during disarmament to pit
Northerners against SouthernerS. Indeed,
he would hesitate less, for while a drilled
German army may not beat a French ar
nv, q German crowd of men, by virtue of
it's mere patience, and habit of obedience,
and physical weight, would almost inevi-
tably beat a French crowd of similar pro-
portions. 1t may be said that with small
armies there would be less of the military
spirit prevalent in Courts, but where is
the proof of that Certainly it is not ia
history, which shows that one of the
most disturbed epochs in Europe was one
in which an army of q hundred thousand
men on a single battlefield was considered
q monstrous force. No such force, indeed
Oh one SLUG 6NSI lOuSuC OdGlIC uutlUS ZIG
whole reign of Louis XIV. England has
never had o great army, and England has
always, except Just now, been as willing as
any other State to go to wal. AS the dismis.
sal of soldiers could not alter the relative
proportions of power, so neither could o
reduction either OF officers or artillery.
Prince Bismarck is said to have remon-
strated against the new French Law on
the Cadres, which would show that he
thought u multiplication Of officers an ad-
dition to the strength of France; but he
proposed, if anything, that France should
reduce, not that Germany and France
should reduce equally.
Disarmament, when not produced by
exhaustion, is no doubt in a thousand ways
a blessing to the world, but it does not
secure peace, nor can we conceive any
change in the municipal organisation of
States which would. Governments of
every form are about equally willing to go
to war. Republics fight as hard as Mon
arches, and Constitutional Governments,
if we may Judge by our own past history,
rather harder than either. The consent
of popular bodies is just as easy to obtain
as the consent of Monarchs. The strong
est organisation of Democracy-Casarism
is essentially warlike; and the feeblests
Federalism, has never. when assailed,
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