, 1866-05-22

It seems to rest with her TO say a single
word, and these threatening preparations
would subside as speedily as they have
arisen. But that word is not said. and we
are left to imagine that if Europe be in
volved in war it must be because France
is not concerned to prevent it. In France
herself the idea gains ground that the
farsighted director of her destinies views
with no very serious annoyance the pre-
sent coniuncture of affairs.
The, condition Of Austrian and Italian
finance, if nothing else, should deter
those countries from these costly lemon
STATIONS. They have drained their Elk
cheuuers and ruined their credit 10 sup
porting vast armies, which inflict upon
them in peace many of the evils of war.
War is a fearful scourge, but, like other
great misfortunes, it has its uses /; 1t
braces the energies and strengthens the
nerves Of a nation 1t IS, after all, the
ultimate arbitrator, from whom there IS
no appeal, in the decision of contrOver-
sizes in which the tongue and the pen
have been employed in vain. Rights
NAV become so blended with wrongs that
human justice is powerIess to decide be-
tween them, and the barbarOus rule OF
force has, at any rate, this advantage
that, whether right or wrong, it is sure
at last to give a decision Of some sort
But the plan of rival ornaments, of a
competing expenditure in time of peace,
inhlcts upon a nation most Of the Gala
mites of war without offering any equi-
vaIent. Austria and Italy have each pro-
vided themselves with an enormous army
which they cannot support for want OF
funds, and dare not dlsband for fear OF
each other. 1t IS a melancholy spCCta-
Gle if all that has been done for The ad-
vancement and civilization of the human
race is to end in this-that great Mon
arches are TO be perpetuaIly arming and
disarming, and causing each other to arm
and disarm, and thus to spend money
which they have not got, and know not
where to raise. To crafty this passion
for military display and power their sub
jects are bowed down with intolerabIe
burdens, agriculture is neglected, COM
merce Ianguishes, and all the arts of life
are arrested in their onward progress,
while all that the State gains for so
many sacriicesis the possession of a vast
machine, a sort of military Frankenstein,
endowed with a life and ~volition of its
own, and capable of plunging its posses
sors into the most terrible caIamities.
Constant experience has taught us that
when pations arrive at the point of exal-
tation which Prussia, Austria, and Italy
have now attained, the advice of we'll
meaning friends is little attended to. We
have surrendered all hope that anything
which can be urged by the Government,
the Parliament, or the Press Of Great
Britain will arrest these dangerous game
STEERS in their i~nsensate course or recall
them to prudence and moderation. They
seem driven on, not so much by hope as
by fear, not so much by bright anticipa-
tions Of the future as by inability any
longer to endure the present. They can
not improve their finances ; but they can
bury the misery of the State under the
still greater mass of private and indivi-
dual misery which war would create.
With the wounds of centuries unhealed,
with infant institutions which nothing
but peace, industry, and economy can
force into existence, they threaten to in
volve themselves in the waste and mise