xxn THE CAUSES OF WAR, AND THE REMEDIES 387 



of organized labour under skilled direction to overcome 

 what to the ordinary man seem insurmountable difficulties. 

 He sees how foaming torrents or broad rivers can be 

 rapidly bridged ; how roads can be made over morasses or 

 across mountains ; how the most formidable and apparently 

 impregnable defences are attacked and taken ; and how a 

 few bold men in a " forlorn hope," by the sacrifice of their 

 lives, often ensure the success of the army to which they 

 belong. Many of the finest qualities of our nature are 

 thus called into action by the soldier's training and during 

 his struggle against the enemy ; and so greatly has hu- 

 manity developed among us that it may be fairly argued 

 that these good effects more than balance the evil passions 

 of cruelty, lust, and plunder which even now are to some 

 extent manifested in every great war, though to a far less 

 degree than even fifty years back. 



But every one of these good results of militarism could 

 certainly be obtained by any equally extensive and 

 equally skilful organization for wholly beneficial purposes. 

 If labour, where organized for military ends, is so 

 effective in results and so beneficial as a training, it 

 would be equally effective and equally beneficial when 

 devoted to overcoming the obstacles to man's progress 

 presented by nature ; to the production of the necessaries 

 of civil life ; to sanitary works for the preservation of 

 health ; and to everything that facilitates communication 

 and benefits humanity. If the same amount of knowledge, 

 the same amount of energy, and the same lavish 

 expenditure where absolutely required, were devoted to 

 the training of great industrial armies, to their 

 maintenance in the most perfect health and efficiency, 

 and to their employment in that great war which man is 

 ever waging against Nature, subduing her myriad forces 

 to his service, guarding against those sudden attacks by 

 storm and flood, by avalanche and earthquake, which he 

 cannot altogether avoid, and in the production of all the 

 essentials of human life and of a true and beneficent 

 civilization, the good effects on character would surely 

 be as much greater than those produced by mere military 

 training, as the objects aimed at and the results achieved 



c c 2 



