Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1892-04-14
THE COST OF ARMED PEACE.
europe Is Poorer sy at Least 81 1000 ,OOO,.
900 Year by IL.

europe Is Poorer by at Least 81 900 ,OOO,-
900 Year by II.
In Europe to-day 5000, 900 men, the
physical flower OF the continent, have
been drilling, marching and counter
marching, practicing ut targets, learn
ing the use OF bayonet and saber and
performing as nearly as is possible in
sham fights the evolutiOns OF actual
war. IL was so yesterday and last
year and through all the yesterdays
OF twenty years Seven times during
this period has the personnel of this
vast host been renewed; consequently
there are now about 10000, 600 Euro
peans not yet beyond middle life who
have been trained to the fighters
prof sSion and who could at brlefest
notice take their places in the active
army or in the reserve.
Every city has its barracks and
parade ground, says a writer in the
Forum; every frontier frowns with a
double row Of Notifications. At the
end Of the nineteenth century Europe,
from the Douro TO the Don, is camp
wherein ten times 300, 900 Of her
able-bodied men are bivouacking,
ready ut sign 10 spring to arms and
STAY each other. The spectacle is
without parallel in the history OF the
world. Even in the boisterous days
of antiquity, when wars were fire.
qucnt, fighting was the business Of
comparatively few. Alexander's pha-
lanx and CGsg's legions were COM
posed OF picked men who adopted the
soldiers career and followed it until
they were retired or killed.
So, too, the armies of Charles V.
and Philip H., of Gustavus Adolphus,
and Turenne, varied i'm numbers from
year to year. The majority of Napo-
Icons old guard and of many of his
regiments of the line fought through
dozen campaigns, and he regulated
the quota OF each years CONSUMPTION
according to each years needs. But
our generation has witnessed the cx-
pansion in Europe of a military sys-
TEN as severe in time OF peace as the
old systems were in wartime, sort
of perpetual levy en- masse.
Measures which once have been
deemed unjustiflable, except in the
most threatening emergency, are now
employed every day, and what was
the standard OF war has been fixed as
the standard of peace. Under the
new system every eligible man is, at
given age, withdrawn from his trade
or occupation and converted for three
or five years into a soldier, till he
becomes proficient in firing breech-
loader and in the appropriately named
goose-step, after which he may go
back to his civilian calling, but with
the liability of being summoned to
fight at any time until he is 45 or 80
years old.
The economic waste which is due
to this system needs no comment.
| TO estimate the sum we must reckon
in not only the money actually spent
on food, clothes, lodging, arms, and
ammunition, the salaries OF officers
and the stipend OF common soldiers,
besides the building and repairing of
| Notifications, but also the wealth
which these idle multitudes could
produce, were they protitably en-
ploycd. This computed, Europe is
poorer by not less than 81, 900. 000, 900
a year. Her armed peace during the
last twenty years has cost her as
much as she paid for all Napoleon's
terrific campaigns from Lodi 10
Waterloo.