The economist still deplores and resists the loss of
producers,--the military authorities insist that the country is short
of its necessary force. To obviate the difficulty as far as possible,
to meet both of the opposing demands, resort is had to the system of
reserves, into which men pass after serving in the active force for a
period, which is reduced to, and often below, the shortest compatible
with instruction in their duties, and with the maintenance of the
active forces at a fixed minimum. This instruction acquired, the
recipient passes into the reserve, leaves the life of the soldier or
seaman for that of the citizen, devoting a comparatively brief time in
every year to brushing up the knowledge formerly acquired. Such a
system, under some form, is found in services both voluntary and
compulsory.

It is scarcely necessary to say that such a method would never be
considered satisfactory in any of the occupations of ordinary life. A
man who learns his profession or trade, but never practises it, will
not long be considered fit for employment. No kind of practical
preparation, in the way of systematic instruction, equals the
practical knowledge imbibed in the common course of life. This is just
as true of the military professions--the naval especially--as it is of
civil callings; perhaps even more so, because the former are a more
unnatural, and therefore, when attained, a more highly specialized,
form of human activity. For the very reason that war is in the main an
evil, an unnatural state, but yet at times unavoidable, the demands
upon warriors, when average men, are exceptionally exacting.

Preparedness for naval war therefore consists not so much in the
building of ships and guns as it does in the possession of trained men
in adequate numbers, fit to go on board at once and use the material,
the provision of which is merely one of the essential preparations for
war. The word "fit" includes fairly all that detail of organization
commonly called mobilization, by which the movements of the individual
men are combined and directed. But mobilization, although the subjects
of it are men, is itself a piece of mental machinery. Once devised, it
may be susceptible of improvement, but it will not become inefficient
because filed away in a pigeon-hole, any more than guns and
projectiles become worthless by being stored in their parks or
magazines. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of
themselves. Prov