Any nation which is considering preparedness for national defense must have a national policy. It must know what it is going to defend and how it is going to defend it. The British navy was built for the specific problem of either defeating the German navy in battle or keeping it fast in its lair. The German army was organized for the purpose of the invasion of France and then of Russia; the French army for defense from Germany. Their efficiency was not the result of the expenditure of money, for money will not buy defense. It requires training, organization, and patriotism, and courage, which are not for sale in the market places of mankind. Until this war the opinion among English-speaking peoples was universal that the volunteer system was the best method of recruiting. This on the principle that the man who offers himself to fight, fights better than the one who is called to arms by government order. Thus England raised 3,000,000 men. But to a man who has lived much with armies, it seems an immoral method; it means hiring men to fight for you. One man's life is just as valuable to him as another's. It is the final sacrifice which he makes for the defense of his country or his home. He should make it himself and not ask others to make it for him. Those who should be the first into battle are the men of wealth, of position, the favored ones. They owe their country more than the others, because their country has done more for them. [Illustration: M. Raymond Poincare, President of France.] The courage which every Continental army has exhibited has forever destroyed the idea that universal service weakens the valor of an army. Millionaire and peasant, nobleman and workman fighting side by side in the ranks, and doing all the drudgery of the trenches in common, develop a democracy which means that a man appreciates his fellow man for his own sake. The old idea that wars must be frequent in order to keep up a nation's virility has also been disproved. Universal service both in France and Germany through forty years of peace, had been an important influence in the better physical development of the race, which led to the fortitude, precision, and courage exhibited. At the same time, a realization of the seriousness of war on the part of all men, because they knew before this war began the punishing effect of rifle or machine-gun and artillery fire, is a powerful deterrent to making war in any spasm of emotion.