Morning journal and courier., 1882-12-20
The German Idea or Soldering.

Baron von Bunsen, in the Fortnightly Review.1
 Readers of the late Mir. Seniors photo graphic renderings of conversations with distinguished Frenchmen after the close of the Crimean war may remember Gen. Canro- bert's saying: "Le Francais est plutot guerrier que militaire." I am not prepared to enter into an inquiry to the justice of this remark in all it's bearing. But it must, I believe, be said of the German that he is ''plutot militaire que guerrier." No one can have observed the soldiers and officers who gained the victories of 1864, 1866, 1870 and 1871 without wondering at the total absence from their ranks of the genus sabreur. No love of war, not shadow of 1t, ever trans pired, think, in any of the millions of let ters that went home from the campaigning crowds. Nor could any individual have been found among the 6O,O00 officers and about a million of rank and file that successively re turned from France, who would dwell with light heart, with complacency joy upon the deeds of prowess in which they had pass ed those momentous weeks or months of their lives The horrors of war, the scenes of blood into which they were thrown, remain constantly before their eyes. To them kind of solelunity hovers over that period. None except the untried youth whose imagination may be heated by dreams Of rapid advance ment, longs for war. On the other hand nothing can be more evident than that this Is essentially military nation. Tue villager who has been exempted from service in the army will have poor chance of finding partner at his h3rHleSs other rural ball. The well to-do yeomen farmers round about Berlin who do not intend their sons to Ego in for learning take care to have their names down for enrolment as privates in some cavalry regiment of the guards when still in swaddling- clothes 1 have been assured that such lads, and there are hundreds of them, cost their parents as much as $500 per annum when they enter upon service as ordinary privates. More popular, therefore, by far, and more highly educated than ever, the army represents without rival the first estate of the realm. What happened to the Liberal party when an attempt was made, not long after the close of the Franco German war, to curtail the military expenditure may serve as an index to public opinion. The Liberal argument plausible enough. Had not the French millards moro than sufficed to replace all damaged or lost material of war to strengthen all the fortresses of the empire to increase the promising naval establishment ? Had not the military spirit in the nation shown itself fully as brilliant, as eager and untiring, as the organization was perfect? Was not this the right moment for the country to show that it confided more in mind than in numbers? Well, the result of these honestly meant Liberal attempts was as follows Crowded meetings throughout the country, and prominently in towns known for their small love for Berlin and its gov ernment, declared in the most vociferous manner that no diminution of the national defenses must be tolerated, stigmatizing as traitors those representatives of the people who might contemplate any such changes Warned by this furious, and quite undoubt- edly spontaneous, popular movement, the advanced Liberals have officially withdrawn from agitating for more compendious and economical army organization. Their efforts l move in the direction of moderating the in | n7lJ rnUOnant lnxnTIOuE military buildings and similar extravagances.
 Yet an opinion is faithfully upheld by them that, with the increase of popular education in the country, shortening of the periods of actual service will become more and rnefa feasible. It is these lines, and mol through the abolition of uniyers"'
 that retrenchments~u.arnr
 Germany,