hest
possible state of efficiency. But that does not mean that we are in
favour of the present system of organizing those forces. We do not
believe in conscription, and we do not believe that the nation should
continue to maintain a professional standing army to be used at home
for the purpose of butchering men and women of the working classes in
the interests of a handful of capitalists, as has been done at
Featherstone and Belfast; or to be used abroad to murder and rob the
people of other nations. Socialists advocate the establishment of a
National Citizen Army, for defensive purposes only. We believe that
every able bodied man should be compelled to belong to this force and
to undergo a course of military training, but without making him into a
professional soldier, or taking him away from civil life, depriving him
of the rights of citizenship or making him subject to military "law"
which is only another name for tyranny and despotism. This Citizen
Army could be organized on somewhat similar lines to the present
Territorial Force, with certain differences. For instance, we do not
believe--as our present rulers do--that wealth and aristocratic
influence are the two most essential qualifications for an efficient
officer; we believe that all ranks should be attainable by any man, no
matter how poor, who is capable of passing the necessary examinations,
and that there should be no expense attached to those positions which
the Government grant, or the pay, is not sufficient to cover. The
officers could be appointed in any one of several ways: They might be
elected by the men they would have to command, the only qualification
required being that they had passed their examinations, or they might
be appointed according to merit--the candidate obtaining the highest
number of marks at the examinations to have the first call on any
vacant post, and so on in order of merit. We believe in the total
abolition of courts martial, any offence against discipline should be
punishable by the ordinary civil law--no member of the Citizen Army
being deprived of the rights of a citizen.'

'What about the Navy?' cried several voices.

'Nobody wants to interfere with the Navy except to make its
organization more democratic--the same as that of the Citizen Army--and
to protect its members from tyranny by entitling them to be tried in a
civil court for any alleged offence.

'It has been proved that if the soil of this country were