OUR PRESENT PEACE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 76, 28 August 1874, Page 4

OUR PRESENT PEACE.

The Times (May says:—Our present peace is such literally as the world has never known before. It is a peaee not only full of mutual suspicion and mistrust, but one which entails as great a burden as Europe collectively has ever borne as the cost of war, and which weighs accordingly on her resources and impedes her progress until a war which would give a real peace has almost come to be the lesser evil. The worst feature of the case is thai the process which is now going on may go on apparently without end, and each newye;:.r may only add to the evils of those which have preceded it. Our talk still is of peace and progress; but peace has been shorn of its accustomed blessings, and progress has chiefly enabled us to devote more money and greater cll'&rts to the preparation for mutual destruction. Is the Europe of the present day. we may well ask, wiser and better than the Europe of our forefathers ? Are her nations now

less addicted to war than in the past ? Are her statesmen less chargeable with the grievous crime of encouraging her worst propensities, and of promoting mutual misgivings and apprehensions, which are not the less pernicious because they arc absolutely baseless ? The evil is so great already that it is scaicely possible to exaggerate it, and there is no near prospect that it will pass away or in any important degree diminish. Rather it seems likely to increase. The causes which have produced it are still at work unchecked. The new military organi sation of Russia, which promises to bring into the field three million soldiers, will give, no doubt, a furthur impulse to the military organisation of Germany, and will act in the same direction, through Germany, upon all the larger States of Europe. The Times this morning devotes, says the Pall Mall Gazette (May 27th), a long leading article to the subject of the ominous increase of armaments throughout Europe, and, if shaking our heads solemnly over the folly and wickedness of the nations who are engaged in this military rivalry were likely to be of any service, the observations of the Times would leave nothing to be desired. But, unfortunately, nations who regard each other in the spirit of hostility and distrust which now prevails generally on the Continent require some better reasons for disarming than the disapprobation of a neighbor removed himself from the particular dangers which large armies are raised to avert ; and unfortunately, also, when their mentor descends to particulars in his argument for general disarmament, his advice is not at all calculated to inspire confidence.