shape of increased bounties, larger pay, or improved condition of our soldiers, a source of livelihood is opened, which to many individuals may be as good, if not even better than their former occupation, as it is chiefly the lower grades in every branch who will be thrown out of employment. It will not, certainly, be as beneficial to the country at large as if they had all continued productively engaged. In Russia, on the contrary, the ranks of the soldiery are filled by a compulsory conscription. At certain periods, each district is obliged to furnish a certain quota of recruits. The serf at the expiration of his period of military service continues a free man, and does not return under the dominion of his master. But so great are the hardships the soldier is subjected to, so severe is his discipline, and so grinding are the tyranny and peculation practised upon him, that enlistment is regarded with the most vivid feelings of repugnance. Every device is resorted to in order to escape it. The peasants run away, and hide in deserts and caves, and they feign disorders, in spite of the severest penalties, and even have recourse to severe mutilations to render themselves unfit for military service. It is held out as a threat of punishment over the serf, and to make a soldier of a refractory serf is one of the severest and most dreaded sentences. The subject we have been considering is so extensive, as well as interesting, that I am conscious of having been able to treat it most imperfectly. It is a suggestive one, however, and many an application which time precludes me from making will be made by my hearers. Two great lessons, however, will force themselves on every mind from the comparative view we have been taking. One is, that we should cherish as well as pride ourselves on that personal and commercial liberty with which we are blessed above most other nations, and endeavour to extend it, as well by guarding against its degenerating into license as by other means. The other is that we should not only not relax, but strenuously augment, our efforts to enlarge and improve the education of the people. Even with regard to the production of material wealth, Mr. Senior ranks the qualities of the laborer as the first of the causes which affect the productiveness of labor. Education expands and develops these faculties. This will not only necessitate but render safe and possible a continual increase of liberty, and will enable us not only to maintain our present high position, but to advance with rapid and glorious steps in the onward march of moral and material progress. [73] IV.-The Utility of Standing Armies as a means of defence in an advanced stage of civilization.-By William H. Jemison, A. B. GENTLEMEN, [Read February 19th, 1855.] That there is no necessary connection between what are called "Peace Principles," and Political Economy, has been pointed out to us this session by Dr. Hancock.* I have thought, however, that the particular notice of the subject of Standing Armies might be opportune. The present unhappy state of our foreign relations, and the erroneous views put forward by some who profess a regard for economic principles, have led me to attempt this notice. Mr. Cobden has spoken of "standing armies as the standing curse of the present generation."+ The curse, however, consists not in them, but in that which renders them necessary. In this respect, there is an analogy between the military and the medical profession. Were it not for the pains and weaknesses of the body, we should not need the aid of the one. Were it not for the violence and evil passions of mankind, we should not require the protection of the other. A As nations have become more intelligent, they have recognised the advantage of making a separation of employments, and have acted on the principle in the matter of national defence. standing army is a body of men who have military affairs assigned them for their sole occupation, and are for this purpose maintained in times both of peace and war, by the rest of the community. We shall consider such a means of defence in relation to its convenience, its expense, and its efficiency. We shall afterwards see what connection it has with the circumstances of a commercial and cultivated people. The convenience of standing armies in relation to the internal organization of society is obvious. It is a matter of the utmost importance that the community being provided with an efficient and readily available force for external defence, should not disturb the regular routine of civil and commercial employments. The two modes of life, too-the civil and the military-differ so widely in their nature, and in the tastes and acquirements which those who follow them must possess, that we cannot contemplate their union, without also contemplating, as its natural result, a degree of failure in each. The consideration of its unfavorable effects on trade and industry seems, however, to be frequently swallowed up in that of the inferiority that would ensue in military service. Yet the consequences of occasional emigration and immigration on the ranks of commerce, and on the interests of industrial pursuits, and the pouring in on civil life of notions Journal, page 38, part 1. † House of Commons, June 17th, 1851. and habits that a short campaign would be sufficient for the mass of the military body to contract, could not fail of being productive of derangements and inconveniencies. It is only in proportion as the business of military operations is made the sole business of those who undertake them, that the machinery of the industrial and commercial world can go on without interruption, at the same time that it has its rights effectively protected against the assaults of other communities. The expense of standing armies can be measured in three different ways—either in labour, in time, or in money. to one. *יי In a state of society where all or nearly all the inhabitants of military age go out against the foe, the defence of the nation is obtained at great cost, for it is at the expense of most of the available labour of the society. To exemplify such costly protection now-a-days, requires us to adduce an extreme case. "Travellers tell us," says Archbishop Whately, "that when a husbandman [in some eastern countries] goes to sow his fields, he takes with him a companion with a sword or a spear, to protect him from being robbed of his seed-corn. This must make the cultivation of the ground very costly; because the work which might be done by one man requires two; one to labour, and the other to fight. And both must have a share of the crop, which would otherwise belong On precisely the same principle, national defence is more or less costly in proportion as it absorbs a larger or smaller quantity of the labour of the society. Now, the assigning to particular persons a particular class of duties is the surest way of economising human labor. It therefore follows that standing armies, in which this principle is farthest carried out, must be in this respect the cheapest means of defence. On looking to this nation, for example, we accordingly find the saving of labor in this particular to be very extensive. The entire population of Great Britain and Ireland is about twenty-eight millions of inhabitants, of whom about the fourth part, or seven millions, are men of military age. The number of soldiers, however, which are found sufficient to defend these may be set down at about 50,000. On these data we have but one soldier for more than every 500 persons; or for about every 130 men of military age; or, again, the 560th part of the whole population suffices for the military protection of this wealthy empire. If we look at the subject in relation to saving of time, the case is equally striking. The proper employment of time is, of course, the fundamental condition of the production of wealth. The time, however, that is spent in repelling aggression is, so to speak, lost time; it might have been profitably spent in the arts of peace, had there been no aggression either to repel or to fear. But when such aggression does exist, or may exist, the less time the nation loses thereby the better. Now, the economising of time is the well-known effect of the separation of employments; and how much the separation of that of the soldier from every other has this effect, is deserving of serious attention. Using the figures before *Money Matters, p. 67. mentioned, we find every person in the community enjoying military protection at the expense of about three minutes a day each. There is no other means by which this national defence could be secured at less loss of time. When we see standing armies economising to such an extent the labor and time of society, the cheapness of the system is, of course, clear. Let us, however, also estimate their cost in money. It would not here be easy to be exact, as, leaving the extraordinary demands of war out of the question, the expense of our army will fluctuate with many circumstances connected both with ourselves and with our dependencies. Supposing, however, for sake of round numbers, the annual expense of the army, with the ordnance, to be so much as £10,000,000, and the population to be 30,000,000, instead of scarcely 28,000,000, the average expense is at the rate of 6s. 8d. a head per year; or about two pence a week for the whole population. And supposing the yearly revenue of the nation to be £50,000,000, the maintenance of the military service absorbs but four shillings of each pound paid in taxes. I do not mean that £9,000,000, or £10,00,0000 a-year is, in itself, any trifling sum. On the contrary, it is the resources of the nation being capable of standing upright under this, and far heavier burdens, that under Providence enables us, in our present struggle, to anticipate with calmness the story of future history. But I submit that our army expenses are small, when compared with what it would cost the community to defend themselves, if it were possible, by any other means. And in all such calculations there is one most important consideration we should never lose sight of, namely, that by making the occupation of the soldier a distinct one, the pursuits of commerce and industry are kept free from interruptions to which they would otherwise be necessarily exposed. Let us now, in the third place, consider the efficiency of standing armies. That they should be efficient, is only what we are to expect from the nature of the case. Adam Smith, in the opening of his great work, mentions as the first of the advantages of a division of labor, “the increase of dexterity in every particular workman. "The improvement," he says, "of the dexterity of the workman, necessarily increases very much the quantity of work he can perform, and the division of labor, by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily increases very much the dexterity of the workman.”* What is true of " one simple operation "in a workshop, is true also of classes of operations, or of the various pursuits of life. That which is a man's "sole employment" is that in which he is most likely to arrive at excel When, therefore, a body of men, as in a standing army, are enabled to devote their lives to military concerns, their efficiency as soldiers follows as the natural and necessary result. Accordingly the author from whom I have quoted illustrates the efficiency of standing armies, by referring to them some of the most important events in the great contests of mankind.† The first regular * Wealth of Nations, book I., chapter i. † Ibid. book V., chapter i. army of this nature, recorded in history, was that of Philip of Macedon; and before it the best militias of the Grecian republics and the Persian empire gave way. When the Roman militias became transformed into a standing army, by long service and strict discipline, they bore down before them all the ablest militias of the ancient world. And we may learn a useful lesson from the fact, that it was when that powerful army was allowed to become relaxed during a long peace, the Roman empire sank before the northern invaders. I would here, too, observe, that the devotion of the time and thoughts of the soldier to the business of defence, has as useful an effect on his moral nature, as it has in the production of his dexterity and skill. It is a well known fact, and one that has been fully developed by ethical writers,* "that the being accustomed to danger begets intrepidity." The power of guarding against danger becomes more active, at the same time that the painful emotion of fear becomes less easily excited. To produce this effect, the encountering of actual danger is not so necessary as we might imagine. The result will be as surely produced through the mutual operation of thought and feeling. By the soldier being habituated by discipline to thoughts of danger and enterpise, the emotion of fear will be almost as effectively numbed as if he had learned warfare on the battle-field. This is, in a great measure, the true account of the fact noticed by Adam Smith, in his chapter on the Expenses of the Sovereign:-"The soldiers of a standing army," he observes, "though they may never have seen an enemy, yet have frequently appeared to possess all the courage of veteran troops, and the very moment they took the field, to have been fit to face the hardiest and most experienced veterans.".. "In a long peace," he adds, "the generals, perhaps, may sometimes forget their skill; but where a well-regulated standing army has been kept up, the soldiers seem never to forget their valour." In corroboration of this, he refers to some remarkable instances in history; but it would be idle for me to occupy your time in quoting them, while the transactions of the last few months are fresh in our minds. We may therefore conclude, both a priori and from fact, that Standing Armies, besides being the most convenient and the least burdensome, are also the most efficient means of national defence. The nucleus of our present standing army was the two regiments of guards which Charles II. formed in 1661; but its numbers were long restricted within very narrow limits. The reason of this restriction was the jealousy with which the existence of such a force was regarded by the parliament and people—a jealousy which the temper of the throne too often showed not to have been altogether groundless.‡ Under our present system of things, however, such apprehensions would of course be necessarily out of place; and this as well from the provisions of the Mutiny Act, as from the army itself being * Bp. Butler-Analogy, part 1, chap. v. Sir J. Mackintosh :-Eth. Phil., p. 394. † Wealth of Nations, book V., chapter i. Hume's History of England, vol. VIII., page 430. |