material well-being. This I would entirely and absolutely deny. In the earlier portion of the present article I pointed out that defence, when treated as an essential element in national policy—not as a mere isolated department calling for money, and withdrawing strength from the nation—in the long-run only stimulates and increases the other factors of national life. A really serious and unflinching consideration of the great problem of defence will inevitably lead to measures that, in the long-run, are bound to benefit our population, our trade, our social well-being, our education. The Imperial unity necessary for defence will quicken our whole political and social life. The fostering of trade within the Empire, and the building up of population in the Colonies, will in the end mean not a mere diversion of the total wealth and population of the Empire, but an enormous aggregate increase. National service will not only provide the reserve for our armies, and increase the efficiency of the voluntary armies raised in the midst of a warlike nation, but it will benefit us in innumerable other ways. It will infuse a spirit of discipline and organization into our masses; while it will at the same time be democratic, bringing every class together to the same common work, and inspiring them with a common sense of duty. It will afford an opportunity for raising the standard and prolonging the period of the national education. It will give a healthy physical training to the mass of our people at the time of life when such training is most needed, and thus conduce to healthier and longer life, and increase our sum-total of man-power. It will enable anything like physical degeneration to be at once noted, and will call for its instant cure. In fact, if only we take the defence aspect of our Empire seriously, we shall solve all the other problems connected with it, because they will one by one force themselves upon our serious attention, and we shall have to give the best of our mind and the whole of our determination to solving them.
