Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/116

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MILITARISM

soldiers themselves, as, for instance, all the display and pomp, likewise influence the non-military population, i. e., those elements from whose ranks the army is recruited, who form its background, who have to bear its expense and who are in "danger" of falling a prey to the interior foe. The British secretary for war, Mr. Haldane, proved himself an apt pupil on his Prussian visit in the fall of 1906, when he learned that. He expressed the thought that a valuable secondary effect of militarism was that it educated the people in sober-mindedness and faithfulness to duty by bringing them into closer contact with the army and war preparations.

Militarism possesses still another means, but one of quite a different kind, to spread its spirit, viz., in its character as a consumer and producer and in its influence over great industrial undertakings of the state which are of strategical importance.

Quite a host of manufacturers, tradesmen and merchants, with their employees, live by the army, people who take part in the production and the transportation of all commodities necessary for