with the problem in the
broadest manner possible within the limits of its space. The concluding
essay, on the State and its Rivals, emphasizes the imperative need that
the authority of the Democratic National State should be recognized and
accepted if internal anarchy is to be avoided, and if the peace and
well-being of the World are to be secured.

F. J. C. HEARNSHAW.

King's College, Strand, W.C.
_January 12th, 1916._

FREEDOM IN SERVICE

I

THE ANCIENT DEFENCE OF ENGLAND[1]

[Reprinted, with the addition of References, from the _Morning
Post_ of August 20th, 1915.]

I. UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE

"The military system of the Anglo-Saxons is based upon universal
service, under which is to be understood the duty of every freeman to
respond in person to the summons to arms, to equip himself at his own
expense, and to support himself at his own charge during the
campaign."[2]

With these words Gneist, the German historian of the English
Constitution, begins his account of the early military system of our
ancestors. He is, of course, merely stating a matter of common knowledge
to all students of Teutonic institutions. What he says of the
Anglo-Saxon is equally true of the Franks, the Lombards, the Visigoths,
and other kindred peoples.[3] But it is a matter of such fundamental
importance that I will venture, even at the risk of tedious repetition,
to give three parallel quotations from English authorities. Grose, in
his _Military Antiquities_, says: "By the Saxon laws every freeman of an
age capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily
infirmity, was in case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or
other emergency obliged to join the army."[4] Freeman, in his _Norman
Conquest_, speaks of "the right and duty of every free Englishman to be
ready for the defence of the Commonwealth with arms befitting his own
degree in the Commonwealth."[5] Finally, Stubbs, in his _Constitutional
History_, clearly states the case in the words: "The host was originally
the people in arms, the whole free population, whether landowners or
dependents, their sons, servants, and tenants. Military service was a
personal obligation ... the obligation of freedom"; and again: "Every
man who was in the King's peace was liable to be summoned to the host at
the King's call."[6]

There is no ambiguity or uncertainty about these prono