THE SPIRIT OF THE MONTH PEACE? The Railroads again Face their Packingtown Basks in Law-abiding Cleanliness The Curious Public is no longer Rent over the Justice of Unwritten Law America in Peace Convention Assembled Anticipates Conference at The Hague Mr. Furnival is probably the most prominent living authority on early English literature. He is a great lover of boating. On his seventy-fifth birthday his friends presented $2,250 to his Early English Text Society, and to him a 3-sculling boat See the article by F. M. Padelford MAY 2 1907 W The Luxury of War E all have our luxuries. Some of us have our steam yachts, some our automobiles, some our books, and some of us our bad habits; but luxuries we must have, cost what they will. So, too, with the world. It has its luxury-war. Of course all good Christians believe that men ought not to fight, but so do we believe that men ought not to spend money for things they can not afford. But there are always extenuating circumstances, and it is always easier to run in debt for luxuries than for necessities. In the days of the Roman Empire a standing army of 120,000 men kept order in the country surrounding the Mediterranean. That, of course, was before we achieved our present high civilization. In these same countries to-day there are probably two million men under arms and as many more in Germany and Russia. But Rome was relatively poor. All of these men have been taken from industry at the age when they ought to be learning their trades. They have to be supported by the state and have to live off of other people. But an army is a luxury which civilization enjoys. All the world, and especially every woman, loves a uniform. Why, then, should Peace Conferences and Hague Conferences try to make us more economical? Have not our reformers learned that as long (Copyright, 1907, by THE WORLD TO-DAY COMPANY.) as a man or a nation's credit is good he can afford all the luxuries he can borrow money to pay for? And then there is the science of war. If one man kills another to avenge a personal wrong, it is, of course, plain murder; but when he and a hundred thousand other people unite to kill another one hundred thousand and one people for a national insult it is military science. Why should Peace Conferences stand in the way of the development of science? A modern battleship will cost enough to endow a couple of small colleges. It will be sent to the junk heap in twenty years if it does not go to the bottom before. But education is only a necessity. The battleship is a luxury. It costs enough to support a nation's military establishment to give old-age pensions, to build hospitals, libraries, art museums, parks and raise the salaries of mail carriers. But a nation gladly sacrifices these secondary goods that it may afford the luxury of being ready to kill a few hundred thousand of its neighbors and develop field hospitals for itself. * One of these days we shall come to our economic senses if not to our moral senses. At that time we shall hear no more silly talk about the greatness of war and of the patriot who must kill somebody in order to be patriotic. The world will do without cannons to smash people to pieces, rifles to bore holes in their bones, bayonets to stick into their bodies, and mines to blow up their transports, and will use the money that these luxuries cost for sensible purposes. When that time comes we may not have as many processions of soldiers, but we shall not be squandering our money on a luxury that reduces wealth, breeds social inequalities and terrorizes neighbors with a fear of misery. But it takes nations, just as it takes plain folks, a long time to grow sensible. |