Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-04-21
NATIONAL CONTRASTS.
New York Herald.

| vi Iue ScNcultcH oldltS VI I-ulo
counted together-is twentv-one thou
sand six hundred and twenty-three
million dollars, or more than nine times
az great as the debt of the United
States but the population of all those
States taken together is probably not
more than six times as great as the
population of this county. Conse-
quently we are, in respect to the per-
manent financial burden upon the ma
tion, in more favorable position-a
much more favorable position-than
the peoples of those great countries,
from which but a few years since came
out many prophecies that our great
war debt was to crush US out of eX-
| istence.
In order to pay the interest on the
| debts of European States, to supply
the necessary expenditures of govern
ment and keep up the armies and
navies of the same States the annual
burden upon the people, counting only
the amount directly collected as taxes,
is $2,929, 250,00O, or nearly three
thousand millions Governments
squeeze out of the people every year
sum three times as large as that which
Germany extorted from France at the
end of the last war between them, and
the extortion of which raised such a
clamor in the world. But this extor-
tion of three milliards of dollars from
the people is not thing that once
done is done with, not a war penalty,
but the regular recurring process of
depletion that comes every year and
is every year little worse. Regu-
larly every year the tax gatherers in
Europe extract from the people sum
considerably greater than the amount
of our national debt, while the rela-
ton of the national taxes in Europe to
the sums expended in carrying on the
United States Government is as twelve
to one. In Europe the people are reg
ularly oppressed in time of peace,
year in and year out, with such bur-
dens of taxation as distressed this ma
tion in our great war;
Publicists in England, in France
and in other countries of Europe,
watched our demeanor as we felt the
financial burdens of our war and won
dered how long we would stand the
pressure. They made great eyes and
held up their hands in horror over an
annual expenditure of six hundred,
eight hundred or twelve hundred mil
lion dollars year, and with crocodile
tears over the awful waste advised
US pathetically to let the Republic go
rather than save it at such an awful
price, touchingly reminding us that no
form of government and no political
system was worth such sacrifices
Yet at least three governments in
Europe now costs regularly in times
of peace as much as the American peo-
pie spent in one bad year of the war,
while counting the cost of government
for all Europe together at the present
time of peace it is, at the sum given
above, four times as great as the aver
age of our years of war estimates. AS
the great wonder of Europe was how
long the American people could stand
such war as we had, may we not won
der in our turn, how long the people Of
Europe will stand such peace as
their kings and emperors and generals
have made and are maintaining
Greatly below our people in the pos
session of the ordinary comforts of life,
| far inferior in self-sustaining capacity
in many countries of Europe, even to
| the poorest negroes of our Southern
States or to our latest imported Chi
nese, the taxation per head on the peo-
Piles of Europe is double what it is
here, and is on the increase; and the
intolerable burden accounts for the
general disquiet of the oppressed popu-
lations.
But if the people should at any
time feel inspired with disposition to
| attempt to force change it must be
recognized that they would have a
hard time of it, since more than one
third of the money of which they are
annually robbed in the name of taxa
ton is expended in the organization of
a military force one of the important
uses of which is to keep the people
down. Eight hundred and four mil
lion dollars year is expended by the
State of Europe in the maintenance of
their armed forces. Counting with
this the loss due to the taking away
from ordinary productive labor of the
enormous number of men in the several
armies, it may fairly be held that
Europe expends a thousand million
dollars year on the distrust it's re-
spective parts feel toward each other,
and to guarantee the permanency of
the systems which enable the men
in possession of the political machine
to plunder the people at their own
sweet will 1t is not to be wondered
at if the survey of their position fills
any portion of the people of Europe
with despair and drives them into nj
hilistic or similar conspiracies, and
certainly far less to be wondered at il,
seeing the hopelessness of exertion at
home, they expatriate themselves in
the hope of a brighter future here.
One may rather suppose that the real
wonder is that the people can be kept
in Europe at all.
An English paper has recently con-
sidered very thoughtfully the result
that the enormous burden which Eu-
rope bears, contrasted with the light
weight we carry in this respect, is to
have upon the economical future OF
these two divisions of the world re-
garded as the great commercial rivals
of the future In twenty years from
now, in the year 1900, the London
Economist believes we will no longer
have a national debt-we will be pay
ing but one-tenth of the total taxation
of Europe-and we will be a successful
competitor with her in the markets OF
the world. Our fortunate position,
our vigor, the non-existence here of a
military machinery which withdraws