The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-03-04
INTERNAL GENERALIZATION AND ARMED
-- PEACE

principal continental nations, and the Etna
beneath which he lies is the wholesale arma-
ment which prevails from the Danube to the
Seine, and from the Baltic to the Mediter-
rsnean. Americans should study this pic
ture well; for there is among them a school
of politics, an ambitious self confident, rash,
| persistent school, which is nurturing the
germs Of the sameesystem under which the
youth, the hope, the energy, the manhood
and womanhood of Europe are now despair
ing and whitening. The various sections Of
the United States are threatened witha coun-
terpart Of the armed peace Of Europe, which
brushes every interest of peace and por-
tends profounder ruin than ever resulted from
| the bloodiest and most disastrous campaigns
recounted in history. Jena and Austerlitz,
Moscow and Waterloo did not impose such
burdens as are now heaped on France OF Italy,
on Prussia, Austria and Russia, in order that
the central governments of those countries
may maintain peace with their own subjects
and with each other. Imperial Capitalization
in the United States viii create the necessity
for similar police. Not less than quarter
of million soldiers will be needed to rivet
the letters of an enslaved South; not less than
an equal number tc overawea dissatisfied and
mutinous Northwest; and half million more
viii be wanted to sufocate the impatient as
pirations Of the Pacific States, and to impress
outlying provinces with due conception Of
the power of the home government to re-
strain and punish malcontent populations,
n urbf oh 10 so
tended.
We have only to take a survey of Europe
in order to realize in anticipation the social
and material effects Of an armed peace, such
as above indicated, on this continent The
new army law of France, which is an elabo-
rate copy of the military law Of Prussia, has
produced the utmost CONSERVATION among
French manufacturers and agriculturists of
all classes. Protests come up from all sides
TO warn the government of the havoc which
this law will inflict on the living and on the
incoming generation. Thousands of young
men, rather than be swept from fields of pro-
ductive industry into the enforced idleness of
camps and garrisons, resort to emigration;
and thus the country suffers upon the instant
the double loss of having both its fighting
and working populations diminished. An
example of this operation of the law is pre-
scented in the published certificate of num-
Der of large property holders in the SOUTH
east of France. They state that emigration
from that quarter to America has assumed
most alarming proportions since proceedings
commenced for the execution of the new
military law. Already, they say, they had
good reason TO complain Of the scarcity and
DEAFNESS of labor in consequence Of the fire.
quency Of emigration but now this drain is
so greatly increased, as, in their opinion, to
threaten the immediate ruin Of agricul-
ture. Like representations are made in
of that country does not disguise its
alarm at the rnpid depopulation of the rural
districts and the proportionate decay of agri-
culture And yet surrounded by govern
ments addicted, like its own, to the same po-
litical vices and foilies which are condensing
Europe into centralized empires on no other
general basis, with no other unequivocal
sanction, than an armed peace, this states
manship is not able even TO conceive remedy
that will stop the gnawing of this cancer that
is now laying hold of the vitals of the coun-
try. Not only this, it feels constrained to
confirm, with new extensions and elabora-
tions ga system which," to use the words
Of the London Times, I" dooms nearly the
whole manhood of Europe to years of in
glorious and Improbable garrison life, while
women or inyalids are left to till the ground,
while large tracts of land are el.her imperfect
ly reclaimed or lie waste for want both of CAPT.
tai and labor, while uncertainty and mistrust
hang on all industrial and commercial enter
prise, while e4S 10000 are boarded up in one
bank, and the whole human family seems af-
fected with 1iidas's curse"
And we read in the same journal
The Prussisn military system, which weighs so
grievously even upon those parts of the old
monarchy which have been submitted to il during
two generations, falls an absolutely intolerable
burden upon the newly annexed provinces aud
coniederated states. The kingdom of Saxony
which under the old Frankfort Diet was only
bound TO supply contingent Of 1000 men, one
half Of whom were always on furleugh has now
TO keep up force Of 20 ,000 troops, out of popu.
latiOn Of little more than 600 600 souls and of
revenue Of IL 900 0o0 thaers. Hesse Nassau, and
the Rhine lands sIe equally overbuEdened. and
sale emigration fails 70 relieve.
We could tell still more d0lefal tales of the east
ern Prussian provinces; we could describe no less
heartrending scenes from the central aud southern
German districts; We could point to the emigra- /
ton from the ports Of Itsly-the emigration Of
the most robust population Of the Alps and Appe-
mines from country which ought to have and has
so much more room than twice the present num-
Der Of her inhabitants require. Everywhere
throughout the continent you see the land aud
the .pesple whitening and decayiDg under this
deadly shade Of wholesale armament. Every
where ia the weak ground TO dust with taxation
to supply the want OF the strong, doomed against
Lls wal 70 gnoble and unpI- ductive leisure
Everywhere you see women at cork in the fields
or the highways that great big fellows in uniforms
should play dominoes In cafes. or lounge ia their
eStdmdnets with cigara in their mouths
So much for imperial Capitalization and
armed peace in Europe. The stone-eyed
partisans and fanatics who are bent on con-
solidating an empire in the United States on
the ruins of the federal union, will, of course,
take no warning from the picture. 1t re-
mains for the people to say whether they will
voluntarily Law down their inherent 40 ,,yaIl 90