MODERN ARMAMENTS AND THEIR CURE. M. Jules Simon in "Le Matin."

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 206, 4 June 1887, Page 7

MODERN ARMAMENTS AND THEIR CURE. M. Jules Simon in "Le Matin."

How groat aro modern wars, where 100,000 men disabled are replaced by 100,000 others, and yefc another 100,000, and then by hundreds of thousands, rushing towai'ds death by the rapid trains of all railways. What a heap of slain ! What destructive fires ! How many fields rendered barren for longyears ? What flourishing industries ruined ! How many fathers without children, women without husbands, old men without means of support? How many orphans?— Good heavens ! And what loss for the States ! What desolation ! Each cannon shot costs 4,675 francs, and Krupp's great cannon, the terror of 1870, are now lost, forgotten, replaced by roburite. Oh ! what glory to kill men by the hundred thousand at a distance of two leagues without even seeing those that we kill. That is a stuigglo against nature which cannot keep pace with us to re-people the world. I mean to .say the whole world would curse you if you acted this part. But no ! I acknowledge, to the shame of humanity, that you would bo cursed by your victims. The i world only feels horror for crime when the crime is small. It banishes assassination only when it is isolated. When the assassin becomes a chief of bandits he mounts a step higher, ho is no longer so odious. If he becomes a .Napoleon, ho is glorified. If you have plenty of roburite you will be a hundred times greater than Napoleon. You will be the man who kills the most and kills the most effectively. To have plenty of roburite — that is what is called genius, you can ascend to glory by assassination. The world does not demand of you eternal and universal peace. You cannot guarantee peace for twenty years ; for afi.er all, great as you are, you are only a man. For ten years it would be very difficult. Try, nevertheless ! Will you give us only seven years ? Well, then, give us seven years. The Septennate ! Seven years of assured peace would suffice to save tho world. Themeansare very simple. Ordain by a law that your army shall be reduced by 100,000 men, to begin from the day when another people shall reduce its army by 100,000 men. For that other people I can answer : It would not delay for ten minutes. And not only do I answer for it, but I answer for all peoples. It would be on all sides a general disarmament. It would be said, " The State will reduce its debts ; it will lower its taxes ; it will demand of its Ministers new programmes for labour ; families will breathe again ; the father will say, ' I shall not leave my children orphans. ' The land will recover hands for its cultivation, money to z*cnder culture productive. Factories will rekindle on all sides their furnaces with their creative fires. The genius of scientific men, in place of searching for some new melinite'or roburite, will strive to pour new benefits on the masses of the people, and to conduct chosen spirits into yet unexplored regions of thought." And then, after ,the joy of having lived seven years in quiet, having worked, thought, acted as men, and not having been changed into wolves— after this ineffable joy, should we allow ourselves to be thrown back to days of agony and terror? Will not the day come in history when the last cannon-shot will resound ? Has not God placed this blessed day in His eternal schemo ? This dream may, perhaps, reach the heart of those who mourn a husband or a son. Suppose women's influence was tried. Why are you women silent when ie is a question of peace or war ? Peace is ill your hands ; defend the lives of your sons. ■