The wars of the future, so the halfpenny journalists inform us, will be either waged under the seas or above the clouds, and we seem to be approaching the time imagined by Lord Tennyson, whose swain (in “Locksley Hall”)— “Heard the heavens filled with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue.” If wars ever die out, it will certainly _not_ be owing to the destructive capabilities of the weapons employed. In the eyes of old Geoffrey de Vinesauf the naval conflicts of his time were as terrible as he could well imagine them to be, but a hundred years hence a Conference will doubtless be held at Tokyo to consider what restrictions should be placed on the use of submarine boats and aerial machines in time of war. Those who are in favour of utilising the latest resources of science for the purpose of warfare are in reality more humane in the truest sense of the word than those who seek to limit nations in their choice of weapons. Vice-Admiral Sir John Fisher, who was one of those chosen to represent Great Britain at the Hague Conference, expressed himself strongly on the cruelty of making war on “humane” or moderate principles, and it is an undoubted fact that in spite of the deadly nature of modern arms, wars, on land at least, are not so destructive of life nor do they cause so much misery and suffering as they did formerly. We can speak with more certainty with regard to warfare on land than we can to warfare on sea, but though the next great naval fight between two nations will certainly entail terrible suffering on the combatants (especially on those whose stations are below), it may be said that on the whole they will neither cause such wholesale misery nor be so protracted as the naval battles of old. “Every war,” said Captain Herbert in a recent lecture at the Royal United Service Institution on “The Ethics of Warfare,” “marks a step. In 1885 the Servians, when they invaded Bulgaria, paid conscientiously in good coin for every fowl or pig seized in farmhouses, for every glass of brandy drunk in village inns; and when the tables were turned, and the Bulgarians invaded Servia, the Bulgarian soldiers and the Servian traders fraternised most cordially in the alehouses of Pirot. To come to the latest European war—that between Turkey and Greece in 1897—we have the testimony of the war correspondents that the behaviour of the Ottoman soldiery was quite exemplary. If things continue in this wise we shall perchance hear in the next century of every rifle discharge being preceded by a conciliatory caution and every bursted shell being followed by a humble apology.”