The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-03-17


~E the whole peace conference
lSgSSsH During the whole progress
lHEJE of the conference up to tha
@A time, the two conspicuous
figures had been Presiden,
Wilson and Clemenceau, and the two
great questions to be decided had
been the league Of nations and the fu
ture security Of France. But in the
last week Lloyd George has suddenly
taken control Of the course of events
for the moment at least, and persuad
ed the Paris conference to adopt a
policy the consequences of which can
hardly be forecast.
From the very outset the Paris con
ference has struggled with that duty
imposed upon it by the peoples of the
world to make future war impossible
To this end, the league Of nations was
devised. In this movement Mr.. Will
son achieved world prominence, but
to reinforce the purpose of Mr.. Will
son, Lloyd George has now proposed
what must be at least temporary
interruption of the system of conscrip-
tion, first in Germany, and later, and
only very little later, in the whole
world.
British System Imposed
What Lloyd George has definitely
proposed is fairly well known now.
Marshal Foch and his military asso-
ciates had proposed that the German
army should be reduced to approxi-
mately 100000, with a corresponding
general staff, but this army was to be
raised in the old fashioned way by
conscription, and, provided the Ger
mans never had more than 100000
men on foot at any one time, 1t was
conceivable that they might repeat
the achievement of the last century
and by rapidly passing men through
barracks, build such system as the
Prussians constructed to the later ruin
of Napoleon. Moreover, as long as
Germany continued to raise an army
by conscription, it would be inevitable
that Italy and France should not only
preserve conscription but should con-
tinue to call up annually more men
than Germany was allowed.
To all this, Lloyd George has inter-
posed an emphatic negative, and has
had his way Under his plan, there
British military system, which calls
for a voluntary army comparable to
our own regular army, made up Of
twelve years, to be exact. The size
of this army will be rigldly held down
to a 100000 army as contrasted with
the national army of recent decades.
What Mr.. Lloyd George had in mind
was two-fold thing. II Germany
were permitted to continue conscrip-
tion. it was inevitable that England
would also have to adopt permanent
ly that conscription method followed
In the later years Of war. In the last
political campaign, Lloyd George
gave unqualified assurances that this
system Of conscription should be
abandoned. In imposing upon Ger
many the necessity Of abandoning con-
scription, Mr.. Lloyd George is keep
ing his political promises in England.
But the thing goes far beyond this.
Conscription Is the sort Of thing which
persists because every nation is COM
PEELED to protect itself so long as one
nation arms It's whole population. By
the system Of conscription the French
revolution not only saved France, but
overran Europe. BY conscription, the
national armies of Prussia and the
South German states overcame the
professional armies Of France in 1870.
At the very moment of the outbreak
or the last war, France had adopted
three-years' service law in a vain ef-
fort to raise among forty millions Of
people an army approximately equal
to that OF a state of sixty-seven mil
lions.
Fulfilled Promises
Now, If Germany is compelled to
abandon conscription and to accept a
professional army of 100000 men,
France and Italy in their turn will un-
questionably abandon conscription:
the radical and socialist parties and,
in fact the masses of French and Ital-
ian people, will never consent to
make an annual sacrifice of their
youth when the danger prevented by
conscript Germany is abolished. AS
for England, nothing is more certain
than that she will return to her old
system OF professional army.
The thing, however, does not end
here. Lloyd George had two objects
in mind He was compelled to fulfil
his political promises, not only pre-.
serve conscription but should continue
to call up annually more men than
Germany was allowed
He was compelled to find a method
to save the British people from that
burden of conscription which they had
never accepted before the war, and
only shouldered when the war was
well advanced. But he was convinc-
ed, in addition, as are very large
number of Englishmen, that if the Ger
man people were once out of the habit
Of conscription, they would not return
to 1t. and the terrible burdens of arm
ed Europe would automatically disap- |
pear
The English philosophy in this mat |
ter is simple There are at least |
75,000,000 of Germans in Europe who |
can not be permanently separated |
from each other except by their own |
fcontinued on Page Three)