Page:The War and the Future (Masefield, 1918).djvu/67

Rh, and a wise protection of the individual against certain aggressions by King and State, and a great commerce, strongly protected, you may also find the man of action discountenanced, and the talker in power in his stead.

In the military state, the soldier justifies himself to his subjects by some act which rids the State of a danger or enriches it with a piece of plunder, so that he is able to say, "You see, the Army saved you or enriched you. You see that you must have an Army." When the army is enlarged, he attacks another State and enriches his own State still further; definitely enriches his officers with gifts of other people's property and his surviving men with bits of other people's lands, and at the same time increases his army by conscripting the conquered peoples.

Presently he forgets that the State is anything except himself. He cries out that the State is himself, since he is the head of the Army and the Army is the State. He subordinates everything to the army. He tolerates schools only in so far as they teach military maxims, and women only because they produce cannon fodder. He encourages bad manners in his officers, because he thinks that it teaches