THE

ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER, 1862.

PEACE OR PERDITION.

Here is the only alternative for nations; and the time is approaching when they must all look it full in the face. Their war-system, always a cancer on their vitals, is sure, at its present and prospective rate, to prove sooner or later their ruin. It is a question of life or death; they must either change their war-policy, or die. They cannot stand forever, if they can much longer, its incessant, ubiquitous, enormous drain upon their material or their moral resources.

rate.

Just glance at some leading facts patent to every eye. In the last half century the nations of Europe have probably spent in actual war an amount greater than all they are now worth; and these expenditures they are, even in time of peace, constantly increasing at a fearful Those of England have more than doubled in thirty years, and those of the Continent have not been much better. In peace, Europe keeps from four to five millions of men ready, on land and sea, for the work of mutual slaughter and wholesale mischief. The sum total of her war-debts already amounts to nearly, if not quite, ten thousand million dollars; and these debts are constantly increasing even in times of profound peace and general prosperity. England never expects to pay her debt; we doubt whether any other nation in Europe will do much better than she in this respect; and nearly every government there is steadily pushing its system of taxation just as fast and far as the people will bear. Meanwhile they are straining

every nerve in the rivalry of preparations for war; and the recent changes in naval warfare, threatening to supersede the old navies, and demanding in their place enormously expensive iron-clad war-ships, will impose burdens that must ere long become absolutely intolerable. The people cannot, if they would, bear them forever. Nations must, from sheer necessity, change their war-policy, and devise some other system for the settlement of their disputes, for the protection of their rights, and the redress of their wrongs. The issue is clear as noonday, and inevitable as fate. They are stabbing or eating out their own vitals; and they must, sooner or later, abandon their suicidal war-policy for a policy of peace, or go to perdition.

Such change, however, we neither expect nor desire to be introduced at once; but we insist that it can be, and must be, in time. Nor is it

so difficult as many suppose. Light, poured like that of the sun all over Christendom, would insure it. Just revolutionize public opinion on the subject; and the result we seek, would gradually follow as a matter of course. It can be done, if we will, with moral certainty and comparative ease. How much would such a change cost? Not a hundredth part as much as it now does to sustain the war-system. This system requires for its support even in peace not less than four million men, and a thousand million dollars every year. How small a fraction of these would suffice to effect in thirty years such a change of opinion as would lead nations to supersede in time their war-policy by one of peaceful justice, far more effective in securing their rights, and redressing their wrongs, than the sword ever has been, or ever can be. If only one of the thousand million dollars spent annually by Christendom for war purposes, had been wisely used every year for the last fifty years in spreading light on this subject all over Christendom, we should doubtless have seen long ago such a change in public opinion as would ere this have rendered war among its nations well-nigh im. possible, and its whole war-system in a course of sure, if not rapid extinction.

How sad the thought that the seeds of peace were not sown among ourselves in season to avert the terrible crime and calamity now upon us! But our people would not spend one dollar for peace; and now they are forced to spend in war scores on scores of thousands; and God only knows when or how it is all to end. Alas! if we could only have been wise in season. To say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of lives sacrificed, had only a single day's cost and waste of this rebellion, probably not less on both sides than three mil

lion dollars. been spent, or the bare interest of it,-$180,000 a year, -in seasonable efforts to diffuse all over our country light on this subject, and thus train the people of the South, as well as the North, in only the lowest principles and habits of peace, this appeal to the sword could never have been made, but all our difficulties would have been settled by legal, peaceful means. The merest fraction of what has been spent in past years upon our own comparatively cheap war-system, would have sufficed, if used in season, to avert all this wide and fearful avalanche of crime, calamity and woe upon our land.

TAXATION IN FRANCE.-The ingenuity of France in finding subjects for taxation, is remarkable. It is proposed to levy in Paris an annual tax upon carriages, of four wheels, of fifty francs; upon those of two wheels, thirty francs; and twenty-five francs upon each saddle and carriage horse. In the country this tax is to be reduced to forty, twenty-five and twenty. It is said there are 12,000 carriages in Paris, and that through the country the result of this impost would be 5,500,000 francs or more. Dogs are taxed now at the rate of ten francs per annum; and it is said the government intends to levy a tax upon cats. Among other projects of increasing the revenue, is also said to be one for a tax of a centime a hundred upon matches, which would yield half a million of dollars a year. The good Lord save us from such minut e, ubiquitous taxation; but the rebellion is sure to draw after it for ages, if not to the end of time, this hateful yet inevitable legacy of war. Our days of comparative freedom from taxation are gone in all probability forever. Henceforth ours will be the fate of Sisyphus rolling his stone, and of Ixion tugging at his wheel.

BRITISH WAR EXPENSES.-In 1835, the cost of our army, navy and ordnance combined, was less than £12,000,000; in 1850 it had increased to £15,300,000, and now to nearly £30,000,000 a year. France spends £5,000,000 a year on her navy, we £13,000,000; and yet we are told that we are greatly behind that terrible naval power in naval preparation. We have more than 900,000 men in our army and navy, and are paying for them thirty millions a year, or nearly £600,000 ($3,000,000) a week, £100,000 every working day, £4000 every hour in the twenty-four, £66 every minute, or £1 every second of every working day in the year; an amount which in two years exceeds the value of our entire British and Colonial fleet of merchantmen.-London Patriot.

SPECIE AND BANK-NOTE CIRCULATION. Advance from 1840 to 1860.Circulation of notes in 1840, $132,405,294; in 1860, $208,000,000. Increase 57 per cent. Specie, 1840, $33,165,155; 1860, $80,000,000. Increase 160 per cent. Thus the specie increased almost three times as fast as the circulation; and while in 1840 one specie dollar supported four paper dollars, and in 1850 sustained three, it now holds up less than two and a half. So much for California.

THEORIES OF PEACE.

Ridicule is much easier than an honest, earnest search after truth; and thus it is that most men, even while claiming to be followers of the Prince of Peace, undervalue the cause of peace through an inexcusable ignorance of what it really is. They have few definite ideas of its principles, its object or its means. They talk flippantly about its quixotism, its visionary, impracticable schemes, just as if they contained no reason or practical reality. But what are " the theories of peace?" We will state in brief some of the most important:—

One is, that war is an unchristian, irrational, brutal method of settling disputes, that ought, especially in such an age as ours, to be discarded, might be, and will be just as fast as public opinion on the subject shall be recast in the mould of the gospel.

Another is, that the principle of legal, peaceful justice, such a system of laws and courts as every civilized community provides for its individual members, is equally applicable to nations, ought to be applied for the settlement of their controversies without resort to arms, and might, if used in season and in good faith, be made to supersede all necessity of appealing to the sword.

We insist, also, that war, after ever so many years of mutual slaughter and devastation, really decides nothing, but still leaves the whole original matter of dispute to be settled in the end by the very same means that might have been employed far better before fighting than after it.

We urge, moreover, specific substitutes for war; substitutes much more likely than the sword to secure the great ends of international justice and safety. We say, as a clear dictate of common sense, that controversies, whether between individuals or communities, can be settled only in one of two ways-either by amicable agreement between the parties, or by reference to a third party as umpire; and hence our substitutes for war would be mainly the following:

1. Negotiation, by which the parties adjust their own difficulties; and, if nations, or their rulers, would always keep their passions under the control of reason, would discard the illusions of national honor, and abstain from all committals in the way of menace or defiance, waiting patiently till mutual forbearance and concession should be exhausted in vain, they could hardly fail in any case to secure between themselves a peaceful adjustment.

2. Reference in different forms.-If the parties cannot agree be