"The same high authorities tell us further, that {164} during this period of five months, the German Government has called upon the civil population, has appealed to able-bodied men who had previously been exempt from military service, and that by this means it has obtained, and has been engaged in training, arming, and equipping another 4,000,000 or 4,500,000 who, it is anticipated, will become available for war purposes in new formations, during the spring and summer of the present year. "Our Government, therefore, according to your own account, has not been afraid to ask the civil population to serve, and this is the response. Does it look as if the national spirit had been quenched under our autocratic system? "Out of our whole population of sixty-five millions we have apparently raised for military service on land and naval service at sea, between 9,000,000 and 11,000,000 men since this war began. Out of your whole population of forty-five millions you have succeeded in raising for these same purposes only something between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 men. And in your case, be it observed, in order to attract recruits, you have offered good wages and munificent separation allowances; while in our case men serve without pay. "This numerical comparison is worth carrying a stage further. Germany and her ally have between them a total population of 115,000,000. The United Kingdom (including the people of European stock who inhabit the various Dominions), France, Russia, Belgium, Servia, and Montenegro number in round figures about 280,000,000. Roughly speaking, these are odds of seven to three against us. And I am leaving out of account all the non-European races--the {165} Turks on the one side, the Japanese and the Indians on the other. If these were included the odds would be much heavier. "And yet our Kaiser spoke but the simple truth, when he told us on New Year's Day that, after five months of war, the German armies were almost everywhere on the territories of their enemies. We are not only keeping you back and defying all your efforts to invade us; but like the infant Hercules, we have gripped you by your throats, and were holding you out at arm's length! [Sidenote: METHODS OF RECRUITING] "I do not of course pretend to look at this matter except from the German standpoint; but is there any flaw in my reasoning, is there anything at all unfair, if I thus sum up my conclusions?--By Midsummer next--after stupendous efforts of the oratorical and journalistic kind--after an enormous amount of shouting, music-hall singing, cinema films, and showy advertising of every description--after making great play with the name and features of a popular field-marshal, in a manner which must have shocked both his natural modesty and soldierly pride--after all this you expect, or say you expect, that you will possess between two and two-and-a-half millions of men trained, armed, equipped, and ready to take the field.