We have thus far treated the policy of the government towards the dangerous tribes as one not requiring the use of the military arm in any emergency short of an actual outbreak. We have done so, first, that we might encounter the full effect of the objections to the plan of concession and conciliation; and, secondly, because we hold it true, that, when the alternative is between allowing a considerable degree of insolence and outrage to go unpunished, and entailing upon the Territories a general Indian war, duty and interest require the government to go to the last point of endurance and forbearance with the savages. But this alternative is not always presented: it is often practicable to repress and punish violence, without exposing the settlements to the horrors of massacre. Whenever this can be done, it is scarcely necessary to say it should be done, and done effectually. The feature of the present Indian policy of the government which allows this to be done without incurring general Indian war is known as the reservation system,--a system shrewdly devised to meet the known weaknesses of the Indian character. By it extensive tracts have been set apart for the warlike tribes, within which they may pursue all their customs and habits of life, and indulge themselves in savagery, being also subsisted thereon to the extent of their actual necessities, but outside of which bands or parties are liable to be struck by the military at any time, without warning, and without any implied hostility to those members of the tribe who remain on their reservation, and deport themselves according to the conditions of the compact. The brilliant campaign of Gen. Crook in Arizona during the past season has been prosecuted with the most scrupulous observance of the reservation system, as marked out by the government, and accepted by the Indians themselves. Such a use of the military arm constitutes no abandonment of the "peace policy," and involves no disparagement of it. Military operations thus conducted are not in the nature of war, but of discipline, and are so recognized by the tribes whose marauding bands and parties are scourged back to the reservations by the troops. The effect of all this is something more than negative. It does not merely serve to chastise offending individuals and parties without a breach of peace with the tribe; but it is made the means of impressing the less enterprising Indians with an increasing sense of the power of the government. It was not to be expected that the entire body of a warlike tribe would consent to be restrained in their Ishmaelitish proclivities without a struggle on the part of the more audacious to maintain their traditional freedom. The reservation system allows this issue to be fought out between our troops and the more daring of the savages, without involving in the contest tribes with which our army in its present numbers is wholly inadequate to cope.