struggle of 1914, the frightful conflict of nations that moved
like a great panorama before our eyes. These resources are of two
kinds. One of them consists in the material wealth of the nations
concerned, the product of the fields and factories, the mineral
treasures beneath the soil, the results of trade and commercial
activity and the conditions of national finance, including the
extent of available revenue and the indebtedness which hangs over
each nation, much of it a heritage from former wars which have
left little beyond this aggravating record of their existence. It
is one which adds something to the cost of every particle of food
consumed by the people, every shred of clothing worn by them.
Additions to this incubus of debt little disturb the rules when
blithely or bitterly engaging in new wars, but every such
addition adds to the burdens of taxation laid on the shoulders of
the groaning citizens, and is sure to deepen the harvest of
retribution when the time for it arrives.

A second of these resources is that of preparation for war in
time of peace, the training of the able-bodied citizens in the
military art, until practically the entire nation becomes
converted into a vast army, its members, after their term of
compulsory service, engaging in ordinary labors in times of
peace, yet liable to be called into the field whenever the war
lords desire, to face the death-belching field piece and machine
gun in a sanguinary service in which they have little or no
personal concern. This preparedness, with the knowledge of the
duties of a soldier which it involves, is a valuable war resource
to any nation that is saddled with such a system of universal
military training. And few nations of Europe and the East are now
without it. Great Britain is the chief one in Europe, while in