The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1899. TALKING PEACE AND PREPARING WAR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 48, 30 November 1899, Page 17

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1899. TALKING PEACE AND PREPARING WAR.

need at the close of the Napoleonic campaigns. But the Alliance did not last long. It was shattered by dynastic quarrels and rival commercial interests, and its fine-spun hopes were torn to pieces before Sebastopol, in the campaigns of Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark, and on the battle-fields of Puebla, Magenta, Sadowa, Gravelotte, and Plevna. • • • Its place in European politics was taken by the Triple Alliance on the one hand, and its counterpoise on the other —the entente or treaty between France and Russia. These | served, after a fashion, to keep the peace. But it was a cumbrous « armed peace ' that was only a little less burdensome and costly than actual war. These alliances were based on considerations of mere self-interest. And therein lies the death of the hope that they will long survive or effect much or any lasting good. Of the members of the Triple Alliance, Germany has to keep her grip on Alsace and Lorraine ; Italy has an old grudge against France for having seized Nice and Savoy in requital for services rendered at Magenta and Villafranca ; and Austria claims a free hand a wider field of influence in the Balkan States. Besides their more immediate and pressing domestic concerns, Russia and France are looking abroad and seeking feverishly to extend their sphere of commercial influence — the one in Equatorial and Western Africa, Tunis, Tonquin, Siam, and China ; the other in Turkestan, Persia, India, China, and Japan. Both these alliances have been ostensibly formed to preserve the peace, 'but their real purpose,' says Leibbbawd, • is more than ever conquest and power.' Iheir mutual distrusts and conflicting interests have paralysed their hands at a time when they might have to some extent justified their existence and won a shred of decent renown by striking a much-needed blow for the cause of outraged humanity in the Ottoman Empire. The chance came when the Armenian Christians were being robbed and massacred by the brutalised soldiery of the * unspeakable Turk.' Any two of the six great European Powers had at hand the means to effectually force the Turk to relinquish his cruel persecution of the Armenians, to punish the delinquents, and to compel the payment of indemnities to the families of the victims. One or two of the Powers were, in fact, favourable to intervention over the Armenian horrors. But mutual distrust stood in the way, and the helpless excuse was sent forth to the world : ' Isolated action against Turkey would bring on a European war.' This poor plea was, in the words of Russell Wallace, * a worse condemnation of the Powers than their mere failure to act.' * • » The Austro-Prussian conflict of 18G6, the Mexican campaign, and the gigantic Franco-German struggle were all dynastic wars. They had no sufficient cause, and neither secured, nor were they intended to secure, the well-being of the States engaged in them. But by far the greater number of the wars of the past one hundred and thirty years were wars of commerce. Once on a time kings used to declare war ; then cabinets ; now it is the Chamber of Commerce and the Stock Exchange. There was a time, as in the Crusading days, when nations fought for a sentiment. But the days of Wars of sentiment have passed away. Nowadays the nations are jealously elbowing and jostling each other to secure themselves in their old markets, and to stretch out their hands to set a grip upon the new. For this we have an Eastern Question, and boundary disputes in Alaska and Venezuela, and trouble with Russia on the Persian Gulf, and a Fashoda incident, and a tangle of conflicting ' spheres of influence ' on the African Continent, and a Sainoan imbroglio, and a war with the Transvaal and Free State Boers. For this European peoples are burdened with the maintenance of colossal fleets and armies which afford no hopes of disarmament in our day. Russia's people die by thousands of famine. But her great military railways and her troop-massing go steadily on. Italy has been driven to the farthest verge of national bankruptcy. But she faces revolution rather than reduce her armaments. France's war-budget is £35,600,000 ; Germany's £44,000,000. The mere armies of the six great European Powers count, on a peace-footing, close on three million men. If we include those permanently attached to the several fleets, the number would considerably exceed three millions. The annual expenditure of the six Powers on and in connection with

war exceeds £180,000,000. Alfred Russel Wallace has the following comment on these figures in bis most recent work, The Wonderful Century .• Now, as the average wages of a working man for his annual expenditure), considering the low wages and the mode of living in Kussia, Itaxy, and the .other Continental States, cannot be more than, say, twelve shillings a week, or £30 a year, an expenditure of £180:000,000 implies W^tfastant labow of at leart six million other men in supporting -this- monstrous and utterly barbarous system of natidnal armamente. If to this number we add those employed in making good the-public or private property destroyed in every war, or in smaller military or naval operations in Europe, we shall have a grand total of about ten million men withdrawn from all useful or reproductive work, their lives devoted directly or indirectly to the Moloch of war, and who oom* ?5 ore be BU PP° rted by the remainder of the working And yet the « working community/ tosses its cap and huzzas for wars, the sole or principal object of which is to provide fresh markets or fields of investment for those who hold the money-bags. Verily, it is < a wonderful century.*