From the national point of view, it is ennobling that at some period of their lives the great majority of citizens should have served the commonwealth disinterestedly. This after all is the only principle which will support a commonwealth. For a commonwealth will not stand against the shocks, which history teaches us to beware of, merely by dropping papers, marked with a cross, into a ballot-box once every five years, or even oftener. It will not stand merely by taking an intelligent interest in events, by attending meetings and reading the newspapers, and by indulging in outbursts of indignation or enthusiasm. It will only stand by virtue of personal service, and by the readiness of the whole people, generation by generation, to give their lives and--what is much harder to face--the time and irksome preparation which are necessary for making the {407} sacrifice of their lives--should it be called for--effective for its purpose. If the mass of the people, even when they have realised the need, will not accept the obligation of national service they must be prepared to see their institutions perish, to lose control of their own destinies, and to welcome another master than Democracy, who it may well be, will not put them to the trouble of dropping papers, marked with a cross, into ballot-boxes once in five years, or indeed at all. For a State may continue to exist even if deprived of ballot-boxes; but it is doomed if its citizens will not in time prepare themselves to defend it with their lives. The memories of the press-gang and the militia ballot are dim. Both belong to a past which it is the custom to refer to with reprobation. Both were inconsistent with equal comradeship between classes; with justice, dignity, honour, and the unity of the nation; and on these grounds they are rightly condemned. But the press-gang and the militia ballot have been condemned, and are still condemned, upon other grounds which do not seem so firm. Both have been condemned as contravening that great and laudable principle of British freedom which lays it down that those who like fighting, or prefer it to other evils--like starvation and imprisonment--or who can be bribed, or in some other way persuaded to fight, should enjoy the monopoly of being 'butchered,' both abroad and at home. And it has been further maintained by those who held these views, that people who do not like fighting, but choose rather to stay at home talking, criticising, enjoying {408} fine thrills of patriotism, making money, and sleeping under cover, have some kind of divine right to go on enjoying that form of existence undisturbed. Since the Wars of the Roses the latter class has usually been in a great majority in England. Even during the Cromwellian Civil War the numbers of men, capable of bearing arms, who actually bore them, was only a smallish fraction of the entire population.