May 25, 1916 
LAND & *\VATER 
been freely " tapped," because beyond any other of the 
belligerents her wealth was mobile. But that is not the 
same thing as saying that her wealth was greatest, or 
that her expenditure has been in proportion to her ability 
among the belligerents. 
In another aspect of this economic effort Great Britain 
has done something novel and perhaps perilous : I mean 
in the scale of charges. It may be that an industrial 
society could not act in any other fashion : it is a matter 
not proper for discussion here. Whether you measure it 
by the number of men in the field, or by the number of 
nien equipped, or by the number of weapons used, or by 
the number of missiles discharged or accumulated — no 
matter what you make your test — you will find that the 
co-efficient of expense per unit is immensely higher here 
than elsewhere. It is sometimes nearly treble. It is 
nearly always double. 
It will be said with justice that for the most part such 
wealth — or (to be accurate) such consumable values — 
remain within the economic frontiers of the nation. 
That is true. A portion of them, indeed, is lost for ever, 
exchanged with neutral foreigners against goods which 
are immediately destroyed in consumption— such as 
shell : or which, if not immediately destroyed in con- 
sumption (weapons, for instance) produce no further 
' wealth. But still the greater part of the material passes 
from the economic power of one British subject to the 
economic power of another. But that is not the root of 
the matter. The root of the matter is that what was 
formerly accumulated wealth productive of further 
wealth in the hands of the first British subject, turns into 
wealth which is consumed and destroyed without' the 
production of further wealth in the hands of the second 
British subject. The process has been going on with 
an intensive progression. It was begun when expansion 
of the war and its duration were less clear, and the 
economic effect of such a revolution has yet to be seen. 
Yet here, also, the whole thing has been voluntary. 
There has not hitherto been any practical " conscrip- 
tion " of wealth, though something very like it has 
appeared indirectly in the new high taxation — for it is 
clear that that taxation cannot be paid out of income, 
and that much of it will be provided by the seUing of 
stock to the foreigner. How much will thus disappear 
we shall know perhaps when the first real pressure of that 
new taxation begins to be felt next year. 
There should lastly be considered in connection with 
this great business the specially difficult problem which 
was presented by the officering and the staffing of the new 
armies. It was perhaps the most serious of all. 
The one main thing discussed in every continental 
country when the conscript armies of the last generation 
were in process of construction, was the officering and the 
staff. It was necessary in a conscript country to form 
cadres, that is " Frameworks " — moulds, as it were, of 
existing officers and non-commissioned officers into 
which should be poured the material of the mobilisation. 
Without such a framework no army could stand. 
The formation of these cadres, even under conscript 
conditions, was always a serious difficulty. The supply 
of professional officers was not unlimited. The obtaining, 
training and keeping of a body of non-commissioned 
officers was still more difficult. The formation of cadres 
for the reserves was a continual anxiety and, if one may 
use the phrase, abnormal methods had everywhere to 
be taken advantage of. Thus in Germany a reserve of 
officers was created out of the young men who had only 
one year's service and who had paid a sum of money to 
be exempt from the ordinary conditions of barrack-room 
life. In France the difficulty of obtaining enough non- 
commissioned officers was met, but only with partial 
success, by the offer of premiums for re-enlistment. 
It was always doubtful how far the system had succeeded. 
Here, in England, this vast new army had to be pro- 
vided immediately, and out of nothing, with its cadres. 
It did not find, as the mobilised forces of evfery other 
nation found, cadres already in existence, far too large for 
the standing army and designed for the army mobilised. 
It found when war broke out quite a small body of pro- 
fessional officers, a correspondingly small body of non- 
commissioned officers, a certain number of commissions 
held by men who were not professional soldiers, and 
whose experience of their profession was very much less 
than that of professional soldiers — an inheritance of the 
CONTENTS 
19 
PACE 
I 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
To Victory. By Bernard Partridge 
The Passing of Ypres 
Empire Day. (Leading Article) 
The Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain 
Messages from the Dominions' Premiers 
Empire Building. By Harold Cox 
Story of the Five Nations : — 
"Canada and Her Army. By A Canadian Officer 8 
Australia's Part. By Arthur Mason 9 
New Zealand's Share. By Noel Ross . 11 
South Africa's Record. By C. D. Baynes 12 
What India has Done. By Sir Francis Young- 
husband 13 
The Crown Colonies, etc. 14 
Battlefields of the British Army (Map) 16 
Britain's Military Effort. By Hilaire Belloc 17 
Dominions' Naval Help. By Arthur Pollen 22 
Sortes Shakespearianse. By Sir Sidney Lee , 23 
Africa and the German Plan. By John Buchan 25 
Man and the Machine. By G. K. Chesterton 26 
The Empire in Arms. By Prof. J. H. Morgan 28 
War Colony of Oversea Women. By Mary MacLeod 
Moore 30 
What Empire Day Means. By the Earl of Meath 31 
For King and Empire. By Louis Raemaekers. 32-33 
An Untrue Tale. By Boyd Cable 34 
British Empire Production and Trade. (With 
Tables and Diagrams). By J. Holt Schooling 41 
Motoring Overseas. By H. Massac Buist 46 
Half Hours with High Commissioners. By Joseph 
Thorp.— Australia .50 
New Zealand . 32 
South Africa 56 
Canada 58 
French Red Cross. By Hilaire Belloc 61 
The Overseas Club 63 
Town and Country xx 
The West End xxii. 
Choosing Kit xxvi. 
time of the old volunteers continued through the new 
Territorial army. Beyond these there was nothing. 
There was a moment when it seemed hardly possible 
that, in such circumstances, the officering of the new 
armies could be accomplished. But the marvel here has 
been, as in the case of numbers, not that the difficulty 
should exist, not that it should have been unfortunately 
clear, but that it should have been dealt with at all. 
With the formation of staffs the matter was graver 
still. It was long the talk of every continental critic, 
not only of our new armies, but of his own, that " you 
cannot improvise a staff," and the staff is the brain of an 
army. The staffing of an army means not only the staffing 
of its higher command but of all the subsidiary units 
down to the brigades. 
How far that worst of all difficulties has been sur- 
mounted the campaign has already in part shown. We 
have heard plenty of criticism of the imperfection of 
staff work. We had ample evidence of that imperfection 
at Neuve Chapelle, and not a little of it last September. 
But, I repeat, the conspicuous fact about the whole 
business is here, as in the case of numbers, as in the case 
of officering, not the gradually decreasing imperfection 
displayed, but the power of forming staSs at all with 
such rapidity and out of perfectly new material. 
In conclusion, we must remember with regard to all 
this that this success (the magnitude of which no one has 
yet grasped) . has been accomphshed under the conditions 
of modern war. 
The analogy of the past, which is sometimes appealed 
to, will not hold. The chief analogy, of course, is with 
the armies of the French Revolution. These were not 
multiplied by ten, but they were multiphed by three. 
Their officering also was a problem which was but 
gradually solved. 
Novel methods were used which -ultimately proved 
successful in their case, as in ours. Bnt there lies between 
the two things this capital difference^ that in the case ol 
the revolutionary armies all developments would be slow. 
The conveyance of information, itself a matter of days 
and sometimes of weeks ; mobilisjition the affair even of 
