move across the chessboard. It might even win battles, and yet your
standing army are mercenaries, and no great nation, from the days of
Babylon, has resisted invasion or held an empire by her mercenaries."

"They are English soldiers," Mr. Haviland declared. "I do not recognize
your use of the word."

"They are paid soldiers," the Prince said, "men who have adopted
soldiering as a profession. Come, I will not pause half-way. I will tell
you what is wrong with your country. You will not believe it. Some day
you will see the truth, and you will remember my words. It may be that
you will realize it a little sooner, or I would not have dared to speak
as I am speaking. This, then, is the curse which is eating the heart
out of your very existence. The love of his Motherland is no longer a
religion with your young man. Let me repeat that,--I will alter one word
only. The love of his Motherland is no longer _the_ religion or even
part of the religion of your young man. Soldiering is a profession for
those who embrace it. It is so that mercenaries are made. I have been
to every one of your great cities in the North. I have been there on a
Saturday afternoon, the national holiday. That is the day in Japan on
which our young men march and learn to shoot, form companies and attend
their drill. Feast days and holidays it is always the same. They do what
tradition has made a necessity for them. They do it without grumbling,
whole-heartedly, with an enthusiasm which has in it something almost
of passion. How do I find the youth of your country engaged? I have
discovered. It is for that purpose that I have toured through England.
They go to see a game played called football. They sit on seats and
smoke and shout. They watch a score of performers--one score, mind--and
the numbers who watch them are millions. From town to town I went, and
it was always the same. I see their white faces in a huge amphitheatre,
fifteen thousand here, twenty thousand there, thirty thousand at another
place. They watch and they shout while these men in the arena play with
great skill this wonderful game. When the match is over, they stream
into public houses. Their afternoon has been spent. They talk it over.
Again they smoke and drink. So it is in one town and another,--so it
is everywhere,--the strangest sight of all that I have seen in
Europe. These are your young men, the material out of which the coming
generation must be fashioned? How many of them c