THE PREVENTION OF CRIMES ACT (1908)
The Borstal experiment--Provisions for the "reformation of young
offenders"--Is any diminution in the numbers of police expected?--
Preventive detention--The implied confession that penal servitude
does not reform, and the insistence on it as a preliminary to
reform--The prisoner detained at the discretion of the prison
officials--The powers of the Secretary of State--The change under the
statute--The necessary ignorance of the Secretary of State by reason
of his other duties--The "committees"--The habits to be taught--The
teaching of trades--The ignorance of trades on the part of those who
design to teach them--The difficulty of teaching professions in
institutions less than that of teaching trades--The vice of obedience
taught--Intelligent co-operation and senseless subordination--The
military man in the industrial community.
Some few years ago the English Prison Commissioners began a modified
system of treating certain offenders. Borstal Prison was set apart for the
purpose, a staff was specially chosen, and young offenders were selected
for experiment. It was a notable departure, and the authorities seem to
have been satisfied with the results. Either they had power to undertake
the experiment or they had not. In the former case there was no need for
an Act of Parliament to give authority; in the latter case they must have
been breaking the law. If they were within their powers there was nothing
to hinder them from extending their beneficent work. That work would
necessarily depend for its success on the experience and special ability
of those who performed it. If the men in office in other prisons do not
possess similar qualifications for the work no statute will confer them;
but it may cause them to have duties placed upon them which they are not
fitted to discharge. So long as the treatment had to be justified by its
results, it would be fairly safe to assume that only those who could prove
their fitness would direct it; now it needs as little of such
justification for its continuance as do the Inebriate Homes.
The Prevention of Crimes Act (1908) deals with the "Reformation of Young
Offenders," and the "Detention of Habitual Criminals." The young offenders
must be not less than sixteen and not more than twenty-one years of age;
but the Secretary of State with the concurrence of Parliament may make an
order including persons apparently under twenty-one, if they are not
really over twenty-three years of age. The young offender must be
convicted on indictment of an offence for which he is liable to penal
servitude or imprisonment; and it must be apparent to the Court that he is
of criminal habits or tendencies, or an associate of bad characters. The
Court must consider any report by the Prison Commissioners as to the
suitability of the offender for treatment in a Borstal Institution; and
may send him there for not less than one and not more than three years. In
Scotland the Secretary of State may apply the Act by Order, and may call
the institution by any name he chooses.
If a boy in a reformatory commit an offence for which a Court might send
him to prison, he may instead be sent to a Borstal Institution, his
sentence then superseding that in the reformatory school.
The Secretary of State may transfer persons within the age limit from
penal servitude to a Borstal Institution.
The Secretary of State may establish Borstal Institutions, and may
authorise the Prison Commissioners to acquire land, with the consent of
the Treasury, and to erect or convert buildings for the purpose, the
expense to be borne by the Exchequer. He may make regulations for the
management of the institution, its visitation, the control of persons sent
to it, and for their temporary detention before their removal to it.
Subject to the regulations, the Prison Commissioners, if satisfied that
the offender is reformed, may liberate him on licence at any time after he
has served six months--in the case of a woman, after three months; and the
licence will remain in force till the expiry of the sentence, unless it is
revoked or forfeited earlier, in which case the offender may be arrested
without warrant and taken back to the institution. Subject to regulations,
the Prison Commissioners may revoke the licence at any time. If a licensed
person escapes from supervision, or commits any breach of the conditions
laid down in the licence, he thereby forfeits it; and the time between his
forfeiture and failure to return is not computed in reckoning the time of
his detention. The time during which he is on licence, and conforming to
the conditions therein, counts as time served in the institution.
Every person sentenced to detention in a Borstal Institution remains under
the supervision of the Prison Commissioners for six months after his
sentence has expired; but the Secretary of State may cancel this provision
where he sees fit. The Prison Commissioners may grant a licence to any
person under their supervision, and may recall it and place him in the
institution if they think this necessary for his protection; but they may
not detain him for more than three months, and they cannot detain him at
all when six months have passed since his sentence expired.
Young offenders detained in Borstal Institutions, if reported as
incorrigible or as exercising a bad influence on the other inmates, may be
removed to a prison to serve the remainder of their term, with or without
hard labour, as the Secretary of State may decide.
The person under licence must be placed under the supervision of some
person or society willing to take charge of him, and named in the licence.
Where a society has undertaken the assistance or supervision of persons
discharged from the institution, the expenses incurred may be paid from
public funds; but, curiously enough, the statute makes no reference to
payment of persons willing to act as guardians.
A person may be moved from one Borstal Institution to another, and from
one part of the United Kingdom to another. He is to be "under such
instruction and discipline as appears most conducive to his reformation
and the repression of crime"--which is sufficiently vague. The only thing
of any importance in this part of the Act is the provision for letting the
offender out on licence. If it is used to board him out, some progress may
be made; but if it is merely used to provide funds for some society of
philanthropists to play with, there is little ground for the hope that it
will do much for the offender.
The second part of the Act is more peculiar than the first. It is designed
to deal with the case of the habitual offender, and as originally drafted
it provided for retaining him in custody, if the officials thought proper,
for the rest of his life. This would have been nearly as certain a
preventive as hanging him, and would have been much more costly.
A consequence that might be expected to spring from the prevention of
crime would be a diminution in the numbers of the police. It is their duty
to arrest criminals, and if the criminals are shut up their occupation is
gone. It is a striking fact that during all the discussions which took
place on the measure, nobody suggested that as a result of its operation
there would be any smaller number of policemen required. There was no
likelihood of it; for crime will not be prevented to any great extent by
the institution of "reformatories"--experience has shown that very
clearly--but it will be diminished to some extent while the professionals
are incarcerated. This has been tried and found insufficient and
unsatisfactory. The new Act makes provision for the care of people who
have been liberated from Borstal Institutions, and for the reformatory
treatment of those who have become habituals after graduation in crime and
in prison experience--neither of which qualifications makes it easier to
deal with them.
The "habitual criminal" of the statute is one who, between his attaining
the age of sixteen years and his conviction of the crime charged against
him, has had three previous convictions and is leading persistently a
dishonest or criminal life. Such a person, after being sentenced to penal
servitude, may be ordered to be detained on the expiration of that
sentence for a period of not less than five and not more than ten years,
at the discretion of the Court. The charge of being a habitual offender
can only be tried after he pleads or has been found guilty of the crime
for which he has been indicted, and seven days' notice must be given the
offender of the intention to make such a charge. The Court has a right to
admit evidence of character and repute on the question as to whether the
accused is or is not leading persistently a dishonest or criminal life.
The person sentenced to preventive detention may appeal against the
sentence to a Court consisting of not less than three Judges of the High
Court of Justiciary, in Scotland. The Secretary of State may, in the case
of persons appearing to be habitual criminals and undergoing sentence of
five years' penal servitude or upwards, transfer them, after three years
of the term of penal servitude have expired, to preventive detention for
the remainder of their sentence.
Prisoners undergoing preventive detention shall be confined in any prison
which the Secretary of State may set apart for the purpose, and shall be
subject to the law in force with respect to penal servitude; provided that
the rules applicable to convicts shall apply to them, subject to such
modifications in the direction of a less rigorous treatment as the
Secretary of State may prescribe. This means that the person convicted has
to be dealt with by the same officers who have been dealing with him when
he was called a convict prisoner. There is no reason to assume that their
ability to make him better than he was will be increased because an Act of
Parliament has been passed. A change of labels, however dexterous, does
not alter the character nor will it change the atmosphere of the prison.
"Prisoners undergoing preventive detention shall be subjected to such
disciplinary and reformative influences, and shall be employed on such
work as may be best fit to make them able and willing to earn an honest
livelihood on discharge."
This subsection is wide enough to include all reform. It implies that
prisoners are not subjected to such disciplinary and reformative
influence, and are not employed on such work as may be best fitted to
make them able and willing to make an honest livelihood on discharge; but
if this implication is justified, why should they not be placed under
helpful conditions from the first day of their imprisonment? To one who is
not a legislator it appears foolish to insist that offenders should be
placed under conditions which do not fit them to live honestly outside
prison, and that this process should be repeated until they have become
habitual criminals, before it is ordered that steps shall be taken for
their reform. What are the influences ordered by Parliament, and what is
the work they have to be taught which will make them able and willing to
earn an honest livelihood? Surely no Member of Parliament is credulous
enough to believe that the influences and the work that will tend to make
one man better will be suitable to all men. Even Members of Parliament do
not all conform to the same rules, and there are as many differences among
criminals as among legislators.
"The Secretary of State shall appoint for every such prison or part of a
prison so set apart a board of visitors, of whom not less than two shall
be justices of the peace, with such powers and duties as he may prescribe
by such prison rules as aforesaid."
"The Secretary of State shall, once at least in every three years during
which a person is detained in custody under a sentence of preventive
detention, take into consideration the condition, history, and
circumstances of that person, with a view to determining whether he should
be placed out on licence, and if so on what conditions."
"The Secretary of State may at any time discharge on licence a person
undergoing preventive detention if satisfied that there is a reasonable
probability that he will abstain from crime and lead a useful and
industrious life, or that he is no longer capable of engaging in crime, or
that for any other reason it is desirable to release him from confinement
in prison.
A person so discharged on licence may be discharged on probation, and on
condition that he be placed under the supervision or authority of any
society or person named in the licence who may be willing to take charge
of the case, or of such other conditions as may be specified in the
licence.
The Directors of Convict Prisons shall report periodically to the
Secretary of State on the conduct and industry of persons undergoing
preventive detention, and their prospects and probable behaviour on
release, and for this purpose shall be assisted by a committee at each
prison in which such persons are detained, consisting of such members of
the board of visitors and such other persons of either sex as the
Secretary of State may from time to time appoint.
Every such committee shall hold meetings at such intervals of not more
than six months as may be prescribed, for the purpose of personally
interviewing persons undergoing preventive detention in the prison, and
preparing reports embodying such information respecting them as may be
necessary for the assistance of the Directors, and may at any other time
hold such other meetings and make such special reports respecting
particular cases, as they may think necessary."
A licence may be in such form, and may contain such conditions as may be
prescribed by the Secretary of State.
The Secretary of State is the figure who has all power over the person
sentenced to preventive detention; but the Act does not give him any power
that he did not before possess. The Secretary of State has always held
and used a dispensing power regarding the sentences passed on prisoners.
He has not only remitted sentences, but he has imposed conditions while
granting a remission. The Act does not even limit his power, for as the
representative of the King he may liberate anybody if he sees fit. What
the Act does is to set up machinery whereby the Secretary of State may be
moved. Hitherto some personal interest must have been taken by him in a
case before the exercise of the Royal prerogative would be recommended by
him, for he would require to be prepared to justify his action if
questioned in Parliament. The Act alters all that in so far as it applies
and makes matter of routine what was exceptional.
The Secretary for Scotland is the head of all the departments of
administration, and being the head of all, is not likely to know,
intimately, much about any of them. He has his parliamentary duties to
attend to, and the more they press on him the more administrative work
must he leave to the permanent heads of the departments. One Secretary of
State may obtain, and may deserve, a better reputation for administrative
capacity than another; but it is absolutely impossible to expect any one
man to know intimately the details of the work of all the departments. He
is responsible for education, for instance, but what can he know
personally of the educational needs of a boy in the east end of Glasgow?
Yet he prescribes for the education of all boys, as though it were easier
to know about thousands than about one. As head of the Local Government
Board, he has to state what amount of relief should be given to poor
people in different parts of Scotland, what amount in grant should be
given to distress committees, and what kind of work the unemployed should
do. He never is a man who has had any experimental acquaintance with
poverty, or who knows by experience what distress is entailed in a
working-class family by dull trade; and manual labour has not been his
occupation. Yet it is not the representatives of these people who instruct
him. It is the Board of which he is the head, and whose members, however
able they may be, are less in contact with those for whom they prescribe
than he is. He is head of the prisons department, and he may now and then
visit a prison; but even a Secretary of State, one might go further and
say, especially a Secretary of State, cannot gain much intimate knowledge
of prisons and prisoners from a casual visit. He has too many things to
do, and the man who has too many things to do seldom does anything. He
leaves that to his assistants. If Solomon undertook and tried to do as
many things as a Secretary of State is supposed to do, he would lose his
reputation for wisdom in a week; but he wouldn't be Solomon if he tried;
and so the Secretary of State, on the advice he receives, has to determine
the fate of the prisoner who is under sentence of preventive detention.
Once in three years every such person has to come under his notice. This
can only be done through reports.
These reports have to be made by the committee set up under the Act, which
committee is appointed by the Secretary for Scotland. It would be too much
to expect that he should know the local circumstances in every case, and
the men appointed may only be those recommended to him by his officials.
That these will be men of good repute there need be no doubt, but there is
no reason to suppose that they will be the men best fitted to represent
the public, or most likely to have an intimate acquaintance with the
conditions under which the prisoners have lived. If the officials had
themselves shown any aptitude for dealing with prisoners in a reformatory
way, there might be some reason for assuming that their nominees would be
persons whose experience of life and the character of whose abilities
would be of such a nature as to fit them for the work they are supposed to
undertake. Men of ideas, especially if the ideas are not officially
approved, are not at all likely to find themselves nominated for such
work. They would cause trouble, and it is better that things should not be
done than that Israel should be disturbed.
The committee have to meet at intervals for the purpose of personally
interviewing those who are under their care; and the value of their
reports will depend on the intimacy of the knowledge they gain regarding
the persons interviewed and on its accuracy. Apparently they need not meet
more frequently than once in six months. Such a provision is too nakedly
absurd to deserve discussion. Apparently they have to report to the Prison
Commissioners, who report to the Secretary of State. The position is
therefore something like this--that prisoners after they have served
prolonged periods in prison may be transferred to another part of the
establishment in order to be reformed. In their new quarters the treatment
they receive is to be less rigorous than it has been. The influences under
which they have to be brought are described but not defined. The officers
may be the same as those who were called warders in the other part of the
prison, but they may have a new name--perhaps a new uniform. If the person
satisfies the Secretary of State, whom he will never see and who knows
nothing about him personally, that he is a reformed character, he may be
liberated on licence; and he may seek election to the ranks of the
licensed once in three years. His conduct and record will then be
considered. What will determine the character of the record obviously is
the impression he makes on those who come into contact with him. That is
to say, he will mainly depend on the report of the warder, for after all,
does he not know most about the man? He certainly sees more of him than
does any other body. A form will be devised which he will regularly fill
in. Government institutions are notable for forms. It will provide for a
record of the prisoner's conduct, behaviour, intelligence, and all sorts
of things, and will no doubt be as ingenious a production as any of the
numerous specimens which result from our practice of government by clerk.
The warder will report to the head warder, who will report to the
Governor. The Medical Officer will report as to the health of the person,
and all the reports will go on to the Prison Commissioners, and from them
to some clerk in the Scottish Office, who has satisfactorily passed a
Civil Service examination on the Boundaries of the Russian Empire, the
death of Rizzio, or some such important educational subject, and who has
never had any opportunity to know anything about prisoners save what can
be learned from books, reports, and an occasional visit to prison. The
reports will be carefully checked, weighed, and summarised, and the
Secretary of State will sign the order made for him.
It is perfectly obvious that the higher up in the official scale one goes,
the less intimate knowledge of the lives of prisoners, of the social
conditions under which they lived outside, and of their needs, can you
reasonably expect to find as things are at present arranged. The man who
has the best chance to get a licence under the Act is the man who can
dodge best. All our experience points to the fact; and it is not uncommon
for the most objectionable character, by subservience and sycophancy, to
impress favourably those who have the dispensing of privileges, and this
is not confined to prisons or prisoners.
When a prisoner is liberated on licence from a place of preventive
detention and placed under the supervision or authority of a society or
person, the society or person has to report in accordance with regulations
to be made to the Secretary of State, on the conduct and circumstances of
the licensee. The licence may be revoked at any time by the Secretary of
State, when the person licensed must return to prison. If the person under
licence escapes from the supervision of those under whom he has been
placed, or if he breaks any conditions of the licence, he forfeits it
altogether, and may be brought before a court of summary jurisdiction and
charged with breach of licence, and on proof be sent back to the place of
preventive detention. The time during which a person is out on licence is
treated as a part of the term of detention to which he has been sentenced;
unless he has failed to return after his licence has been revoked, in
which case the time during which he may have been said to have escaped
does not count as reducing the term of his sentence. The conditions of
licence may be withdrawn at any time by the Secretary of State, and the
person licensed be set absolutely free; but in any case, after he has been
out on licence for five years the power to detain him lapses, provided he
has observed the conditions of his licence during that time.
In both the Borstal and the Preventive Detention Institution it is
intended to teach the inmates habits and pursuits that will be useful to
them in the world outside. What these are will altogether depend on what
is to happen to them on liberation. No institution has yet been devised
that even remotely resembles anything like the life that its inmates have
to anticipate.
A great deal has been written about the advisability of teaching trades to
persons in institutions, but the writers are never themselves artisans,
and if they had any practical knowledge of the subject they would not
write; there would be nothing to write about. More goes to the learning of
a trade than the handling of the tools. Men have not merely to learn how
to do a thing, but how to do it in association with other workers. They
learn the trade not from the lectures of a teacher or the instructions of
a foreman, but from watching the work of others, and imitating or avoiding
their methods, as seems most suitable. Take the two best tradesmen in
almost any workshop, and you will find that they set about their work each
in a different way--each in the way he has found best suited to himself.
The apprentices learn from them; and the lad or man who wants to learn a
trade, is ill-advised indeed if he goes to a workshop where there are as
many apprentices as journeymen.
It used to be said that the first year of a joiner's apprenticeship was
served in sweeping the shavings and in boiling men's "cans"; and there was
a good deal of truth in the statement. The best tradesmen I have known
spent the first part of their apprenticeship knocking about the workshop,
fetching and carrying for others, and unconsciously receiving impressions
and gaining knowledge. The worst I have ever known were one or two whom
the foreman thought, when they entered on their apprenticeship, to be too
old for him to put to such work, and who were chained to the bench right
away.
In an institution where it is undertaken to teach lads or men trades, not
only are the conditions less favourable than those outside, but they are
actually opposed to them. In fact, you have a company composed almost
entirely of apprentices. There are no journeymen. There is only a foreman
in the shape of the instructor; and as the longer he is there the more out
of touch he is with the changes in method that have taken place amongst
his fellow-tradesmen outside, he is only capable of telling his
apprentices how he would do the thing, which in a workshop they might do
better by following a plan more suitable to them. If he has to overlook
their work they cannot be overlooking his; and while he is criticising
their efforts and keeping them in order he cannot be showing them an
example.
Every tradesman and every employer knows that it is an important question,
not only whether a man has served his apprenticeship, but where he has
served it. Of course, under the most favourable conditions some men do not
become good tradesmen; they may have gone to the wrong occupation for
them; but there are conditions that are generally more favourable than
others for the production of capable workmen, and these conditions cannot
possibly exist in an institution. Exceptions trained there may turn out
passable workmen and may find work outside, but the result of trying to
teach trades in an institution will be that at considerable expense you
will increase the number of bad tradesmen; and there are plenty.
I do not say that nothing can be taught in an institution. Many things are
learned there. The whole point is that they are not the things that make
for efficiency outside.
It is easily seen how a man who has not himself been trained in a
handicraft may believe that it can be taught as well in one place as
another, although if you consider his own occupation and suggest that his
profession too might be taught anywhere, he will readily see objections.
The people who are notably interested in prison reform are largely drawn
from the professional classes and from the well-to-do. It may be quite
possible to teach a prisoner or the inmate of a reformatory to acquire the
habits and the manners of an independent gentleman. Of the feasibility of
the proposal, were it ever made, I am not qualified to speak; but, as an
observer, one cannot help seeing that many of them have already acquired
the habit of doing as little useful work for themselves as possible, and
of expending a good deal of energy in directions that are not socially
productive. The clergyman would reject as impracticable any proposal to
train the reformed in an institution for entry into his profession; and
yet abundance of quiet and of time for study could be obtained there, and
there does not seem to be anything to hinder the teaching of theology, of
literature, or of philosophy, from taking place within its walls.
There is, of course, the question of brains. It is a great mistake to
assume that brains are the monopoly of any class, or that they play a more
prominent part in the work of professional men than in that of others. So
far as the training is concerned, there is no ground for assuming that
selected inmates of reformatory institutions could not be had who are as
well qualified by natural endowments to receive instruction of an academic
character, in as large numbers, as others who would be fitted to receive
instruction in the working of wood or of metal. Of course there are other
reasons why ministers should not be trained in prison. There is the
question of moral character; and though reformed desperadoes have become
noble beings before now, I do not think that even the most enthusiastic
evangelist would consider it safe to assume that a man who has failed to
conform to the laws of the community is a safe person to train for the
ministry.
This question of character would not be so generally admitted against any
proposal to train the inmates of a reformatory institution as lawyers; but
although a man might acquire all the useful information and general
knowledge that are required for examination as a preliminary to admit him
to the study of the laws of his country; although he might master the
text-books and become learned in the records of legal decisions quite as
well in a prison as in a lodging outside; no lawyer would admit that
thereby he could qualify to practise his profession. He would insist that
there is something more required in his experience than the mere knowledge
of the laws and of case-books. Being a lawyer, he could set out at length
what that something is.
So there is something that marks off the man who has been trained under
the artificial conditions which exist in an institution from the man who
has been trained outside. I knew of a blacksmith who was a very useful
tradesman while he remained in the institution where he had learned that
trade. He obtained work outside on several occasions, but he lost it
always, not through any misconduct on his part, but through sheer
inefficiency. Some things he could do, but most things he could not do;
and his employers found him an unprofitable servant, partly because of his
limitations and partly because his methods impaired the efficiency of
those with whom he worked. In my day I have served an apprenticeship both
to a handicraft and to medicine, and I have no doubt whatever that it
would have been as easy for me to train for my medical qualification in
prison as to have qualified myself as an artisan in an institution.
It is assumed that what the offender needs is above all to be trained in
habits of obedience, as though that were not what he has always been
taught when in any prison; and much good our training has done him.
I know as little about military affairs as the military men who are
appointed to manage prisons and prisoners know about the duties they
undertake when they are appointed, but I do know something about the
worship of discipline. Discipline means not knowing more than the man
above you, no matter how difficult it may be to know less. There must
always be twice as much wisdom and truth in anything the superior officer
does or says as there is in the actions or words of his inferiors; and it
is insubordination to behave in ignorance or in contempt of this great
principle.
At school we were taught a story about a man named William Tell, regarding
which the later critics dispute the accuracy. It seems that a high
military personage called Gessler set his cap upon the top of a pole in
the market-place and commanded the people to bow down to it. Tell refused
to do so, and was seized and compelled to enter on a test of his skill in
archery; and so on. Whether the story about Tell is true or not, there can
be no doubt about the cap; in one form or other it is still a symbol of
authority, to be saluted with respect by the common people. In Scotland we
had a song about Rab Roryson's Bonnet, but "It wasna the bonnet, but the
heid that was in it," that was the real subject of the ditty. Discipline
pays no regard to the head that is in the cap. The cap is the thing,
though it may be placed on a pole.
Everybody knows that the old cap of knowledge in fairy tales has no longer
an existence, and that absence of what is called brains will not be
compensated for by any covering of the skull, whatever pretence may be
made to the contrary.
Of the virtue of obedience we hear a good deal, and if we look around us
we will see evidences that it may be no virtue at all, but a vice. In one
of the best known of his poems Tennyson describes the soldiers: "Theirs
not to reason why: Theirs not to make reply"; and there are many who think
it a noble thing to teach a man not to use the brains he has, and to die
rather than show disrespect to his superior by questioning his competence.
This may be a military virtue, but it is a civil vice. If it did not work
outside so badly in practice, it might be allowed to pass unquestioned;
but one has only to look around to see the result of its application. The
men who come under its operation are not rendered more efficient citizens
thereby, but are hindered by the training they have undergone from
obtaining employment in industrial life.
Subordination there must be before there can be combined action on the
part of men for any purposes, but there need not be senseless
subordination. In any iron-work, for instance, where men work together,
they each take their own and other men's lives in their hands daily. When
they are acting in concert a false step, a careless act, on the part of
anyone, may bring injury or death on himself and others; and they know
this and behave accordingly, or no work would be possible. For the
inefficient person there is no room, and when serious work has to be done
Gessler's cap has no place; there is only room for William Tell.
Men discharged from the army find difficulty in obtaining employment. It
is not that they are worse men than their neighbours. It is because they
have received the wrong kind of training. Employers do not prefer others
to them from any absence of patriotism, but from a desire for efficiency.
They cannot afford in industrial occupations to have people about them who
have learned that it is "theirs not to reason why." They prefer those who
have been taught to use all the sense they have in dealing with their
work. In short, the person who during the most formative years of his life
has been employed industrially, makes a better workman than the man who
during these years has been taught to wait for the word of command before
he does anything. Yet we have people going all over the country trying to
convince their fellow-citizens that there is no salvation for us unless
all young men are subjected to a period of military training, apparently
in ignorance of the fact that those who have had that training have
difficulty in competing industrially with those who have none. It may be
true for other reasons, for purposes of defence, that we ought to learn to
shoot, though for my part I believe that most men are more likely to be
sick sometime in their lives than to be engaged in fighting with people of
whom they know nothing. That would seem to be an argument for their being
taught how to preserve and care for their own rather than how to destroy
somebody else's health; but Gessler's cap is still in the market-place,
and it is rude to say anything about it. Yet it is not the bonnet, but the
head that is in it, that matters in the long run.