The work of the recruit of Germany and of France, during his two years’ or nearly three years’ training as the case may be, is as hard as any human work; and the populations of the continental countries submit, not on the whole unwillingly, from patriotic motives, to a slavery of which the more fortunate inhabitants of the United Kingdom and of the United States have no conception. The British or the Belgian paid recruit would mutiny if forced to work as works the virtually unpaid and ill-fed recruit of Russia, Germany, Austria, and France. The enormous loss to many industries which is caused by the withdrawal of the men at the age of twenty, just when they are most apt to become skilled workmen, is in the opinion of some Germans compensated for by the habit of discipline and the moral tone of stiffness and endurance which is communicated to the soldier for the rest of his life. This is perhaps more true of the German character than it is of the inhabitants of the other countries; and in France, at least, the soldier training of the entire population is a heavy drawback to industrial and to intellectual life. There are, however, as will be seen in the concluding passage of this article, other considerations to be taken into account, some of which tell the other way. The one successful exception to the prevailing military system of the day is to be found in Switzerland, which has a very cheap army of the militia type, but one which is, nevertheless, pronounced efficient by the best judges. The mobilization of Switzerland in 1870 was more rapid than that of either Germany or France, and, great as are the strides that both France and Germany have made in rapidity of organization and as regards numbers since 1870, the Swiss also have reorganized their mobilization system since that time, and are still able, at a much less proportional cost, to place in the field at least as large a proportional force as Germany, and this force believed to be efficient, although not largely provided with cavalry.