The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-25
THE PREVALENCE OF A WAR
 EPIDEMIC.
iNew York Mereury

There are great many people who are anxious for an Anglo-Russian war because they think it will benefit the United States. It would do no such thing. The rapid rise in wheat at Chi cago and in this city afier the cablegram brought news ot battle between the Russians and Afghans at Penjdeh, and the excitement and activity of the gam blers in grain, shows who would be bene- 6ted in the event of tremendous and necessarily prolonged fight between two of the nations win which this country is directly identified in commerce, with Italy and Turkey perhaps involved as allies. The grain spectators whose sharpness, agents and capital give them every advantage over the producers, the farmers, would alone reap the benefits of a European war. People in moderate circumstances would not feel such a calamity so much as the numberless poor, for the exportation of cereals would soon bring about scarcity, and conse- quently enhanced prices for breadstuffs would ensue. The grain spectators would grow rich as exportations would increase, and at the end of the war they
 would retire from business. But the poor people would then be crippled. and the evil would continue for many years there alter, because the belligerents themselves would grow impoverished to a degree, and it would take much time for recuper- ation and the natural reinstatement of trade. War is the jobbers friend, the
 poor mans enemy, besides being the enemy ot all progress and civiliz ation.
 The best evidence of all that is the eager ness with which the Wall street gamblers are still looking for a positive breach of the peace by England and Russia. In spite of pacific news they are on the alert for speculation. Wheat is quoted as strong" at the produce exchange, and every cablegram is watched in the hope that the two nations will come to blows over strip of territory which belongs to Atghanistan and over which neither has any control. This seems to be bad year for peace. On our own borders the maladministration of the dominion gov- ernment has brought about the Riel rebellion, when little justice to the half breeds, by apportioning among them lands winch they claimed, would have prevented the massacres now going on and which will indefinitely retard immi- grafton. Mexico Is marching into Guate- mala, and Secretary Whitney has sent to Panama ships aud marines, which may do good in bringing the people of the isthmus to respect the American flag and American property. With the large Canadian territory now in agitation and revolt, Chicago and our Minnesota towns have had considerable traffic, and our trade has been gradually growing with Guatemala, until it has become lucrative. War will set back the tide of commerce for years to come in both localities, by impoverishing the inhabitants and crip- bling their men of business. The Soudan war is too far removed from us to have any immediate effect on our commerce. Sall it must indirectly do so by com paratively weakening our best customer England. Be ali this as it may, no thoughtful person should wish for a European war. Although far removed from that continent, the United States would seriously feel the results in the prices of breadstuffs at home and the financial reaction which always seems to follow bloodshed as a retribution.