Mobilization is a word with strenuous significance. When it is put into effect every able-bodied man must report without delay for service. His name is on the army lists; if he fails to report he is branded as a deserter. In Germany, the order to mobilize is issued by the Emperor and is immediately sent out by all military and civil authorities, at home or abroad. Every person knows at once what he is required to do. Skeleton regiments are filled out and additional regiments formed. Simultaneously there is a levy of horses. The order reaches into every household; into the factories, the shipyards, the hotels, the farms, river boats, everywhere. Almost instantly the male individuals within the prescribed ages must at once report to the barracks to come under military discipline. Infantry, cavalry and artillery units double and triple at once. This is the first step in mobilization. The second is the transportation and concentration of forces. The railways are seized, the telegraph and telephone systems. Mail, military, aerial and railway services are assigned. The commissary lines are laid and transportation provided for. With marvelous efficiency the full fighting strength, in front and rear, is made ready and co-ordinated. The psychological effect of mobilization is tremendous. In every household home-ties are broken. The fields are stripped of men. Industry stops. Artillery rolls through the streets, bands play. An atmosphere of apprehension settles down on the country. THE WASTE OF WAR And the waste of it all; the criminal, unbelievable waste! Consider the vast loss of products that is due, not only to actual war, but to unceasing and universal preparation for war. It has been stated on the highest authority that during the last decade forty per cent of the total outlay of European states has been absorbed by the armies and navies which, when war arises, seek in every way to destroy as much as they can of the remainder. Commenting on this state of affairs, Count Sergius Witte, the ablest of Russian statesmen and financiers, said in London not long ago: “Sketch a picture in your mind’s eye of all that those sums, if properly spent, could effect for the nations who now waste them on heavy guns, rifles, dreadnaughts, fortresses and barracks. If this money were laid out on improving the material lot of the people, in housing them hygienically, in procuring for them healthier air, medical aid and needful periodical rest, they would live longer and work to better purpose, and enjoy some of the happiness or contentment which at present is the prerogative of the few. “Again, all the best brain work of the most eminent men is focused on efforts to create new lethal weapons, or to make the old ones more deadly. For one of the arts in which cultured nations have made most progress is warfare. The noblest efforts of the greatest thinkers are wasted on inventions to destroy human life.