fficing, and that common-sense legislative and commercial
recognition of this fundamental fact spelt prosperity for British
subjects the world over.

But, as John Crondall said in the course of the Guildhall speech of his
which, as has often been said, brought the Disciplinary Regiments into
being, "We cannot expect to cure in a year ills that we have studiously
fostered through the better part of a century." There was still an
unemployed class, though everything points to the conclusion that before
that first year of the Peace was ended this class had been reduced to
those elements which made it more properly called "unemployable." There
were the men who had forgotten their trades and their working habits,
and there were still left some of those melancholy products of our
decadent industrial and social systems--the men who were determined not
to work.

In a way, it is as well that these ills could not be swept aside by the
same swift, irresistible wave which gave us "British Christianity," _The
Citizens'_ watchword, Imperial Federation, and the beginning of great
prosperity. It was the continued existence of a workless class that gave
us the famous Discipline Bill. At that time the title "Disciplinary
Regiments" had a semidisgraceful suggestion, connected with punishment.
In view of that, I shared the feeling of many who said that another name
should be chosen. But now that the Disciplinary Regiments have earned
their honourable place as the most valuable portion of our
non-professional defence forces, every one can see the wisdom of John
Crondall's contention that not the name, but the public estimate of that
name, had to be altered. Theoretically the value and necessity of
discipline was, I suppose, always recognized. Actually, people had come
to connect the word, not with education, not with the equipment of
every true citizen, but chiefly with punishment and disgrace.

At first there was considerable opposition to the law, which said, in
effect: No able-bodied man without means shall live without employment.
Indeed, for a few days there was talk of the Government going to the
country on the question. But in the end the Discipline Act became law
without this, and I know of no other single measure which has done more
for the cause of social progress. Its effects have been far-reaching.
Among other things, it was this measure which led to the common-sense
system which makes a soldier of every mechanic and artisan em