OCR Text |
Show CONSCRIPTION IN FRANCK. Notwithstanding all tho Versailles, Frankfort aud Berlin conventions, France and Germany cannot as yet be said to be thoroughly at peace. Peace begius, not when treaties aro signed, but when all their conditions have been fulfilled. According, however, to present arrangements, about three years must elapse beforo vanquished Franco has paid the last centime of the war indemnity, aud beforo every inch of what is to remain her territory will be rid of tho victorious German. This interval may temper the spirit of revenge by which the whole of the French nation at this moment appears to be animated, and wo arc glad to see the German official press disposed, in the meantime to give tho government of M. Thiers full credit for pacific tendencies, ten-dencies, nnd for tho moral courage with whicn it reproved tho hostile feelings still rifo among the French people. But, however paruedtly the president of the French republic may bind himself to ah enduring and dignified digni-fied peace, and however euro It may be that it will pever bo iho iauli France i f any ewaaiai. -- hcr " ie sword, ho is evidently so far from any intention of laying that sword permanently aside, that at the present moment he is considering by what means the temper tem-per of that sword may be strengthened strengthen-ed and its edge sharpened. lie will add ,i!3,:200,000 to the war budget; he will raise tho yearly contingent, which was 40,000 men under the Emperor Napoleon, to 'J0.000. This will give him a force altogether of 800,000 men, of whom 450,000 will constitute the standing army on tho peaco looting All this warlike establishment, however, how-ever, is not deemed sufficient by the mBjority of the assembly, which is clamoring for universal conscription, or in other words, for the introduction into France of tho Prussian military system. The Prussian system, as many may remember, was always looked look-ed upon with the greatest favor by the Emperor Napoleon. In his dismay, indeed, at the rapid and decisivo results re-sults of the campaign of Sadowa, he seemed to sec no possible safety for France except in the adoption of the Prussian mode of recruiting which should enable France to fight her German foe with his own weapon. Tho emperor's scheme, however, was deemed by . his marshals inapplicable to France; and, instead of tho enrolment enrol-ment of all citizens in one and the same force, distributed according to its different categories of army, reserve, landwehr and landstrum, the imperial war othec relied on ihc garde mobile. But this, whatever its real value, wa allowed no time lor development. France had to succumb to Prussian military ortauiz:itiou, and the notion that it was ch icily, if nut wholly, in the fcupeiiority of the Prussian over her own system that France tuvnl her ili.-asiers revived throughout the country coun-try the wi,-h for a rciurui in e:o.-e imitation imi-tation of the Pru.-sian model. M. Thiers alone declared his firm inlyulion to oppOfC any .-ehciLie of universal compul.-ory Mjrvicc, whLh he cuii-id-ered iueouipatilile with the propiii.v of hts i" mntry; but his word? to that effect w.rc received by tlic a-embly with a Mt. nn uf disapprobation, and a majority of the pariiumcniary coiujjU-tce coiujjU-tce chared ftiih the examination oi military affairs h.ave n commended the adoption of the Fru.-.-ian principle of recruiting. Lnu,n Touts. |