The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1895-09-22
Cost Of the Military System for
Twenty-Five Years.
PRINCE BIsMARcKs COST
TO the Nations The Iron Chancellor
Responsible for the Group of
Armed Camps.

Seldom has u more impressive picture
of the evils of European militarism been
drawn than that by General Turr in a
recent Issue of the "Messagcr d'Athenss." !"
In that journal it is entitled WHAT
Prince Bismarck Costs U.s." Perhaps the
tit,e is true. With all his vast services
to Germany and to the world whose
most nlustrious parsonage he Is today,
the Iron Chancellor Is largely and chief
ly to be charged with the responsibility
Of Transforming the powers Of Europe
into a group of armed camps. That,
however IS apart from the real issue.
Denunciation of the cause will not rem
edy the effect. What Is important is not
who was the author of the evil, but
what the evil is, and how best it may be
dealt with, and what 1t will. lead to II
unchecked. These matters General Turr
who Is one of the foremost Hungarian
military and civil engineers discusses
wibh comprehensive knowledge and with
assured authority
The actual cost to Europe of the mill
tary system during the twenty-five years
Of peace, or of armed terrorism, since
the last great war has been, he reckons,
no less than $25,OOO0OO,00 This stupen-
dous sum has simply been squandered on
preparations for war, without any one
during actually to so to war. And the
powers are still spending money at the
rate of $1,000, $1,000 a year, for a war
that may never come, or that, of course,
may come at any time Everything is
ready, 1t only needs that some one,
some clumsy diplomat or reckless min
lister, shall fire the train to explode the
magazine. Suppose that happens. The
war will be a short one, no doubt. But
while 1t lasts it will cost $1,0CO, 100000 a
MONTH Six months may be enough for
one power to whip another in. Its bills
will foot up Sc, 900, 100000. Then there will.
have been million men slaughtered at
a total cost since 1870, of $4,000 each.
Such is the price of militarism.
Apart from the money wasted, twenty
FIVE years of time, which might have been
devoted to peaceful progress, have also
been thrown away. If those billions OF
dollars. or even a part of them, had been
devoted to the welfare of the people,
to increase the general wealth, to i'm
prove the lot of the working peop.e in
town and country, how different would
be the condition of Europe today. The
social question" would not now weigh
ike "a dreadful nightmare upon every
land. Class would not be arrayed against
class. There would not be these out
bursts and upheavals which shake the
very foundations of social and political
order. Mora, pacllcation would prevail,
with industrial prosperity and social con-
tentment. The pauperism, the unrest,
ani the threats of revolution which FIJI
Europe today are also the price 1t pays
fer its military system.
What next? General Turr sees one in
evitable result, to which some nations
are already omnously near. That is uni
veleut bankruptcy. Such a catastrophe
viii be followed by a period of decay
such as that which befell the Roman
Empire in its later years. OF that de-
cay the degeneration noted by Max Nor
dau may be regarded all incipient symp-
tom. And when it has fully set in?
Well, General Turr reminds us that the
decay OF Rome was the opportunity OF
the Bartarlans; and also that the great
invaslons in the world 5 history have al
come from the East. Darius and &erXes
Attia and Abdur- -Rahman, Solimln and
Genghis Kahn, all came from Asia. May
not that mighty mother of conquerofs
give 1irth to vet another? The progress
ard prowess Of Japan have startled the
world. Suppose the hosts of China, one
tAird the whole human race, should be
aroused from their lephargy, and should
be organized for conquest and ed west
ward by some modern Timur, how would
Europe meet them? She might do so
successfully today. But tomorrow, bank
rupt decayed, anarchic, what would be
her resisting power? That General Turr
WAC lives upon the border line between
West and East reckons the greatest peri
of the future, to which Europe is being
delivered by its own insensate folly.