The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-09-17
TIE sA1T HERALD SATURDAY, sEpTENBER II. 1895

lest consequence, and which would now
be regarded as Insufficient cause for a
law suit, much less for a war.
! Under such circumstances war was
almost continual, disputes were hand
| ed down from father to son, and thus
wars were protracted almost indefinite
ly. The hundred years war between
England and France was an instance
in point. Under present conditions it
would never have been waged at all.
the differences which operated as cause
! and occasion would have been settled
| by meeting of representatives from
| the two nations. AS with the hundred
years war, so with the 80 years war,
which. however, the historians may at
tempt to exalt 1t as a struggle for rte
! ligious liberty, was brought abou
| quite as much by political and per.
/ Sonal as by religious consideration,
and long before it ended Catholic an,
| Protestant states were fighting on boil
sides.
Such protracted conflicts like the tw
just mentioned were not wars at all ir
the modern sense, for the armies Of
both sides resolved themselves into
thieving, numbering, plundering bands
i avoiding decisive engagements and
limiting their operations to sieges of
isolated castles or towns and the defeat
of small hostile attachments. Crecy,
Poitiers, Agincourt,s almost every bat
, tie of the hundred years war, was
fought because the French were in
numbers so overwhelming as to be con-
fident of a victory, and the English
army was placed in a position where
it was impossible to continue a re-
treat; but the defeats suffered by the
French did not stop the war, which
dragged it's slow length along after
ward as before these thrilling victories.
The spirit of the modern age is one of
commerce, buying and selling. 1t is
pre-efnihently a peaceful spirit, and
there is no more serious interruption
to business interests nothing is more
destructive of business prosperity than
war. All nations are now bound to-
gether by commercial ties of such in
tricacy that disturbance of the peace
full relations of two states instantly af-
fects the general prosperity. War is,
therefore, serious nuisance in the
family of nations, deprecated by all,
for however remote it may be from the
leading centers of finance and COM
merce, its injurious effects are felt in
London, in Paris, in Berlin, in New
York-ih short wherever, there are
merchants, traders, banks and bankers.
The battle in Manila bay affected the
commerce of Amsterdam. Antwerp and
Bremen. Skaters attack on Santiago
was felt in London and Paris, Miles
advance into Porto Rico had its infiu-
ence on the business of all nations
which had representatives on the is
land.
Civilization is thus, approaching a
point where war will not be tolerated
at all when by any possibility it can
be avoided, and where all nations af-
fected by a quarrel between two will
join hands to induce. the belligerents
to cease their strife at the earliest pos
sible moment. International arbitra-
ton is yet dream of the enthusiast,
but the disastrous effects of war upon
the business of neutrals are such that
after a decisive engagement, or at most
a campaign, other nations whose in
terests are suffering will tender their
good offices to the belligerents to bring
about a return to peace. So long as
present conditions continue, therefore
wars will probably be short AS long
as human nature remains what it al
ways has been there will be strife; as
long as the lust for conquest, the de-
sire for revenge and the love of glory
endure in the world, there will be wars
and rumors OF wars. but in the interest
of civilization the controlling states of
the world will do what they can to
limit the length of an armed struggle
between two and restrict it to the mar
rowest possible limits.