WAR, AN ESSAY.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVI, Issue 1242, 9 August 1859, Page 2 (Supplement)

WAR, AN ESSAY.

(Ftom Frasers Magazine for March.) The following paper will be read with special interest at the present moment. The antthor has consented, at the earnest wish of the Editor of Fraser, to allow the publication of his book to be anticipated. We were staying at the picturesque little town of Namur, for a few days. Often we strayed up the grassy heights of these fortifications, which have seen so much warfare, and which so pleasantly recal King William the Third and my Uncle Toby. The. conversation naturally took a military turn. MilTerton deplored the increase of barracks, armies, camps, in which lamentation I ventured to coincide thoroughly with him. Mr. Midhurst, as a diplomatist, was rather inclined to discuss the political state of Europe, and to show, if not the just reasons, the causes of this increase of military expenditure. Ellesraere flitted from side to side in the argument, and, as his way is, tried to embroil it more and more. Entering into details, Mil ver ton gave us an estimate of the expenses of the Russian war, which he said, speaking from authority, exceeded seventy milions of pounds. Be then proceeded to show the evil effects of the increase in taxation thus caused, and the extent to)[ which it affected the comfort and wellbeing of individuals in the different classes of the state. I remember that he accounted for the largeness of expense in the Russian war as occasioned, according to the opinion of an eminent statesman and financior, by the suddenness of the war. At last, after some discussion-, Ellesmere thus expressed himself: — Ellesmerb. Do not let us have any of this desultory talk. I see you care about this subject, M iiver ton. Let us have an essay from yon on it. An essay on any subject is not worth mudh in itself — is likely indeed to be rather a nuisance ; but it gives Toom for good discussion. It affords extended lines for attack and defence (you see lam quite military in my metaphors); and it may give some method to our talk on the subject. '■ Milverton. No, no ! no mor4 essays, is you please, from- me. I sometimes; wish I had never written a single essay. They are such dogmatic things, at tiny rate in appearance : and as I grow older I hate dogmatising more and more. Besides, if you comment upon errors, most people are apt to think that you I areperfetfc, whereas you seldom write tolerably anything that you have.not suffered from ; and the essays of virtuous aed good men, like the, histories of bappy countries, would be preeminently stupid. Now, in the very case before us, I should have to talk down war and to be very wise about it, but when an occasion for war arises, I am just as likely to be enthusiastic as any of my fellow countrymen, and just as likely to be led away by a popular cry. Then one writes about the matter, and seems so wise and forbearing, being conscious all the time that it is but seeming. Ellesmhbre. — Yes, I know that you would get up at five o'clock in the morning to see the Guards commence their march, and would cheer them as, vociferously as any one of the rest of the mob. But still let us appeal from Philip after dinner to Philip before dinner the next day, and let us have an essay on War; only do not begin at the beginning, and give us long quotations from Thomas Aquinas to prove that war in is some cases justifiable We will take that 1 for granted. There is always war, justifiable war, between ' me and Walter ; also between Fixer and all other dogs of his size and courage. As to what you have said about dogmatising, I hold that to be frivolous. Large, fluent, unquestioning, unhesitating, unscrupulous, dogmatism is one of the grand elements of success in modern life, as it was in the early days of Greek philosophy, when a philosopher had only to assert, ' Eire is the principle of the universe,' or, ' All is water,' or, ' Nature abhors a vacuum/ or, '■ Bodies descend because they have a tenddrioy that way,' — and instmtly after uttering .any of these bold aajiog3,

crowcUof scholars sought the wise raari's^dobi! }. oities contended for the > honour of being his birthplace ; submissive crowds made way before him , and in short to use . parlance, he "kept his carriage" on a dogma. If you have doubts upon anything 'that you talk about, you will not even keep a gig. . Dunsford. — Now that is what astonishes me — namely, that so many dogmai and dogmatiserfl buying been found.out in the course of ages, people should go on dogmatising just the same in art, in science, in literature, and in life. Ellbsmere. — Allow me to say, sir, as Dr. Johnson would have said, that your last remark shows you to be equally ignorant of men and things What is the use of philosophers, critics, and prominent persons of all kinds, but to pronounce distinct opinions on all subjects human and divine, and to save the rest of us the trouble of thinking ? In my essay on Success in Life I shall show that self-asser-tion is excellent — but all assertion is good. Let us bear no more against dogmatising. Do not deprive men rashly of one of their chief comforts ofctHfo. But now about this essay that we are to have. Milvertont. You will not have an essay, but sinie you are so pertinacious, you shall have a solemn talk upon the subject I will think ovej what I have to say, make a few notes, and opnring to this spot tomorrow, at this hour, I will talk out to you all that I have thought upon the matter. Ellerslib. Talk is not as good as writing. If I upset you upon any particular point, you will exclaim, ' That this is not exactly what I said, or at least what I meant to say,' and there will ariso a mist of pnrlaimentarj explanation, and the force of my arguments will be lost in the mist. But I suppose I must be contented with what I can get, and so we will have this solemn palaver to-morrow. We did come on the ensuing afternoon, and Milverton commenced his talk in the following manner : — "ft is now eighteen centuries and a half j since a new religion was preached to mankind — a religion full of peace and gentleness and mercy. On the day when the Founder of that religion^ was born, the peace of Europe was maintained by about three hundred thousand soldiers. There are now about two millions and a half, on the peace establishment * Picture to yourself what these two millions and a-half cost us, , the peacable inhabitants of Europe, in daily pay, in rations, in clothing, and in housing. Go through these calculations carefully Your time can hardly be better spent than in making up such accounts. Remember too, that these unproductive soldiers might have been productive labourers and artisans, so that you have too add the loss of their labour to the cost of their keep. Try to imagine these millions of armed men , defiling, without intermission, in long array before you; the bright, alert and ready-handed Frenchmen, the stout hardy Prussians, the well-drilled Austrians, the stalwart Danes, the gay Piedmontese, the sturdy Dutchmen, the much-enduring long coated Russians, the freelimbed, haughty, defiant Spaniards, and the cool, resolute, solid looking Englishmen, bright summer days would wane away, as this vast armament, with all its baggage and artillery, moved on before your wearied eye 3 j and all night long the unvaried tramp of men and horses would still be heard resounding. Something like a conception of the numbers may be formed by considering that if every man, woman, and child, to be found in London and its suburbs, were transformed into a soldier, the number would about represent the effective force of men-at-arms in Europe. Consider how tho most experienced Londoner loses his way sometimes in that great city, and discovers districts of which he knew nothing before. Let him imagine these new regions as well as those parts of the town with which he is familiar to be suddenly peopled with soldiers only. Let him not only traverse the highways, but go into the houses, and «pc the sick and tho aged and tho infantine, who seldom come into the streets, and let him persevere in imagining these "also to be all soldiers, and London one huge camp He will then have some idea of the extent of European armies, and may reflect upon what it would cost to feed these unproductive millions for a single day. The first objection that will naturally be taken to any arguments drawn from the above alarming statement, is that the population of Europe has greatly increased True : but consider at the same time time that there are' not aow those immense differences in civil izatiod which should invite the movement of large hordes of men in any particular direction. The flourishing cities of the south of Europe nave not now to protect themselves against Gauls, Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Allobroges, Belgse, Quadi, Marcomanni, or other barbarians, who as< naturally rushed upon che nearest tommunity thet was less uncivilized than themselves, as cold air rushes into a rarefied atmosphere. The Gauls and Bel gas and the Allobroges have flourishing cities of their own. Except in few instances, agression is not attempted now with the thought of permanent occupation — at least in P^urope. We ; are becoming a little too old and too wise for that.

DOES WAR SUPPORT WAR ? Bat you will say that the proposed occupation of the conquered territory is bat one motive out of the many that have led to war. This objection is quite just . I will therefore nbwendeavour to dispose of another motive — namely, the hope of spoil. Tkere have been a few occasioni in the world, and only a few, when this motive, the hope of spoil, has been justified by the results, and when the spoil has paid the expenses of the war., When a "barbarian horde of Huns or Visigoths or Tartars, hurrying from a land where gold was rare, and riches of all kinds inaccessible, came down upon a fertile country, paid no expenses as they went along (having never heard of such a thing as a military chest), sacked lourishing citiss, and returned to ( their barbarian homes enriched with spoil of all kinds, there was at least an appearance of success, as far as spoil was concerned. The barbarian, when he displayed to his astonished wife and children cups of gold and dishes of silver, and when he decked out his beloved with precious Btones, seemed to have gained something by his foray, I say ' seemed,' because perhaps it would have been better even for him to have stayed at home and oul*

tivated his laud or looked after his cattle- ' \ ' - ' f „ When again European armies took the rich oities of Mexico and Peru, the spoil was such as might well make spoil a considerable motive for warfare. It is probable, too that the expenses of our first war in China were compensated by tjieu Sycee silver we compelled the Chinese to pay us ; it is more than probable that the expeuses of the French revolutionary armies in Italy, under Buonaparte, were provided for»by \ contributions' from the Italians states. But, as a general rule, in the present time when armies have to pay their way, and when money knows so well how to make itself scare upon the first rumour of its being about to be seized upon by foree — in an age whe swindling may pay, but robbery cannot, no rational man will contend that the movements of armies are in the least degree likely to be paid for by any spoil which it is allowable for them to take. That motive therefore, unless there is a return to barbananism, is effectually disposed of.

WARS OP OPNION. We come now to wars opinion. la thi9 respect also the motive is last dying away from the minds of men. It is not that bigotry i « by any means extinct, but that a great many men have discovered that you cannot propagate opinions securely by means of force. Moreover, the world of opinion, in the last century or two, has become divided into so many sections, that it is difficult to array them one against another in battle. When all Europe was distinctly marked off into Protestant and Catholic, you might bring these two great sections face to face in hostile array ; but now, when there are so many shades of opinion in religious matters, and, consequently, so many different sections of persons anxious for toleration, and fearful lest the party to which they nominally belong should get tho upper hand and oppress them, a thousand hindrances would be found in the way of getting up a great war upon religious opinion. The same argument would apply to any other matter dependent upon opinion. Then again, from whatever cause, the doctrine of non interference as regards the domestic concerns of other states has become largely prevalent in modern times. Ellesmbrb. Forgive me for interrupting, but what I am anxious to say will never come iv so well as at this point of the discourse. You are disposing, Milverton, of various motives for war, but pray do not leave out of your consideration, one which may appear ever so absurd, but it is nevertheless a most important motive to deal with. Which is the stronger ? That is a question pregnant with battle. You have a herd of bulls : they might enjoy their pasture comfortably together ; there is plenty of herbage for all, but that important question, which is the strongest or the fiercest, must be settled first. You have a mob of boys : the same question has to be decided. Walter was only the other day telling me that Higgins and Johnson avoided tarts,, and circumscriped themselves in pudi dings, in order to keep themselves in good training order. You may laugh, but this abstinence from tarts quite corresponds with the ready acceptance of taxes amongst us grown up people for the purposes of war. Indeed I do not know but that the abstinence from tarts is not the greater sacrifice of the two. Man nature is the same as boy nature, and I do not see how you will dispose of this motive — the longing to be first of two rivals — as glibly as you have disposed of other motives which certainly have rather tended to become effete as the world has grown older. iMiLVERTON. Thanks for the interruption, which was well-timed. I had not forgotten the powerful motive which you have so humourously brough t before us. Nay, further, I admit that there are several motives for war, or at least for the maintenance of effective military force, which are by no means dead in the men's minds. Nations have still many objects which fhey are anxious to further, if not by force, at least by the show of force, and which objects are really worthy of considerable sacrifices being made to attain them. THE FRAMEWORK FOR WARFARE. the main question, and that to which the attention of statesmen, financiers, engineers and other men of scientific skill should be directed, is this. They would say, we detest war, we have no notion of a profitable or justifiable war for the purpose of occupying a conquered territory, of gaining spoil, or of propagating opinion ; but we must do something to maintain the sway we have gained, to protect colonies until they can protect and rule themselves, to preseive commercial independence, to prevent the strong from persecuting the weak, and to cause that the great highway of the sea should be traversed without interruption except of a legitimate kind. For these purposes it is not necessary to be always going to war. We want always to our hand a some- ! thing which shall exactly represent the potential force of our nation j and moreover, it must be a representative which can, at short notice, be turned into the thing it represents. That is the scientific problem before them, as in a good system of currency you use for daily purposes but a small portion of the pre> cious metals, having a repcrsectative of a nation's force should be something which adequately represents it, and, which can, without much delay, be converted into that force. The use of too much gold for daily purposes is simply waste And the problem remains, how to maintain potentially the requisite effective force. All this may seem very clear and unI deniable, almost entering into the regions of truism ; but I doubt whether, simple as the ! truth is, it is often clearly recognised by statesmen, and clearly put before legislative assemblies. Mark you, such a problem will not be solved by indiscriminate saving. Expenses would have to be increased in some directions, though, as I believe, they might be greatly diminished in others j and I must adrait that the problem, though easy enough to state, is exceedingly difficult to solve, when you hove to apply it to very numerous and very complicated details. Still there it is before us, and an attempt at solution must always be made.

THE MISCHIEF OF AN ARMED PEACE. After what I have said of the evils of actual warfare, you cannot charge me with underating them. But 1 really do believe that the mischief, if not the misery, of an armed peace, is more to be apprehended. This sword hanging over us takes somewhat of the savour out of every banquet A great war tended, there is some chance of disbandment j and for the

masses of mankind it is the maintenance of hffge armies, and not the war itself, that may prove the greatest evil^causing general depression, augmenting taxation,, hindering trade, and circumscribing adventure, inoreovef, perpetrating all this mischief steadily, as a matter of course; that attracts, comparatively, but little ,no,tjee. There is no^end tojthe increase of armies;; it goes op silently from year • to year, and eveVy year valuable materials of all kinds are used up in a way which will soon go out of •fashion. We find it difficult enough, in. northern climes, to provide warmth for our poor people; think of the coals us^d' for war'steamers even in times of peace. ; In fine, it really becomes a question whether we had better not have a war once in every ten years, which might lead to some considerable, disbandment, ;than a peace full of daily alarms^ which* gives good reason for a constant increase of armies, 'afod' a constant addition of •xpenditura for warlike purposes. „ In what lam going to say now," you may think that I am taking you through devious 'paths ; but you must believe that they will lead up to an important branch of the subject, as they certainly will do. /

Liberal Tbiumphs in Scotland. — Two great political victories were .won in Scotland last week after two of the severest battles known in our electioneering annals. The Derbyite attack on Fifeshire was gallantly and decisively repulsed, and by a brare and noble effort Berwickshire was rescued from a thraldom under which she has lain for a quarter of a century. The most remarkable of thess two victories, inasmuch as it was a successful attack on what had come to be deemed an impregnable fortress, was the storming of Berwickshire. It is tome months more than 25 years since any but a nominee of the Tory county gentlemen sat for that constituency, and four times since had the nominee been accepted, without even the form of opposition. Indeed, with the exception of a desperate attempt made on behalf of Sir Francis Blake in 1835, there had not been the semblance of a political contest in the county from 1832 till the vigorous but successful attempt made the year before last by the lame candidate who has now succeeded. In a county like Berwick—without any appreciable infusion of the trading or manufacturing element, and with probably fivesixths of the acreage in the ownership of inveterate and unscrupulous opponents— the battle becomes not one merely of political principle and party, but ot independence and integrity. As such the battle has been fought and gloriously won. The indomitable energy of the Liberal candidate was well backed ,by the zeal of his committee, and, though the majority is not great, it is sufficient not merely to accomplish the immediate object, but to vindicate the character of the constituency in the eyes of the country, and to show that, in spite of backsliders, there are at least 461 men of the Merse who will not allow any class to landlord it and landlady it over their consciences. Fifeshire has done like herself— done the right thing with spirit, and plenty of strength to spiare. Lord Loughborough, who told an incredulous audience at Cupar the day before that he would at 4 o'clock on Wednesday " ware the flag of victory," had to wave the willow of defeat in a minor" ty of 237. Mr. Wemyss, now the Liberal mem- ' ber for Fifeshire, polled more votes than any mau ever polled in Fifeshire before, though oddly enough only one more than was polled by the late Admiral Wemyss in 1837. At the last preceding contest, in 1847, the Liberal polled 834 votes, and the Conservative 768 ; this time the Liberal polled 1,087, and the Conservative 850 ; so that the Liberal strength has increased by 253, and the Conservative only hy 82. The battle was. one s>o desperate that it would never have been fought had the Derbyites possessed a smaller fund of money and a larger fund of discretion ; but, since they would fight, it was well that the country should have taken the opportunity to declare so very decidedly what it thinks ami whom it wants.— Scotsman . Democracy in Fact, and the Democracy of 'Stray Leaves. — What is Democracy, this huge inevitable product of the Destinies, which is everywhere the portion of our Europe in these latterdays? There lies the question for ut. Whence comes it, this universal big black Democracy r whither tends it r what is the meaning of it ? A meaning it mutt have, or it would not be here. If we can find the right meaning of it, we may, wisely submitting or wisely resisting and controlling, stiil hope to live in the midst of it ; if we cannot find the right' meaning — if we can only find the wrong or no meaning in it, to live will not be possible. The whole social wisdom of the present time is summoned, in the name of the Giver of Wisdom, to make clear to itself, and lay deeply to heart with an eye to strenuous valiant practice and effort, what the meaning of this universal revolt of the European Populations, whick calls itself Democracy, and decides to continue permanent, may be. Certainly it is a drama full of action, event fast following event ; in which curi» osity finds endless scope, and there are interests at stake enough to rivet the attention of all men, simple and wise. Whereat the idle multitude lift up their voices, gratulating, celebrating sky high , in rhyme and prose announcement, more than plentiful, that now the New Era, and long expected Year One of Perfect Human Felicity has come. Glorious and immortal people, sublime French citizens, heroic barricades ; triumph of civil and religious liberty — O Heaven ! one of the inevitable private miseries, to an earnest man in such circumstances, is this multitudinous efflux of oratory and psalmody, from the universal foolish human throat ; drowning for the moment all reflection whatsoever, except the sorrowful one that you are fallen in an evil, heavy laden, long-eared age, and must resignedly bear your part in the same. — Carlyle. A Hint to Abstainers. — The main root of insanity is defect of nutrition, often a transmitted weakness, often a depression caused by personal privation ; it never is a strength of fury added to good health : its wildest paroxysm is so to speak the agony of a mind upon which its house of the flesh falls torturing and crushing, after its foundations have been loosened. Insanity is not the immaterial disease of an immaterial essence, but the perverted action of the mind caused by a defect in its instrument. Whatever helps to put the body into good physical condition does something towards the repair of the defective instrument. Here it is worth while to observe, that in daily life, without the limits of positive disease, there are few things more obviously injurious to the mind's health than crotchets of unreasonable abstinence. It is not in body only that we are to-day pretty well, to-morrow a little poorly, and next day full of vigour ; changes of mental health are greater and more frequent, and to the person in whom they take place more obvious yet we habitually refer them to the body. Depres-; sion, irritability, and a dozen other shifting states of mind, we speak of as bodily disorders, and with reason. Thus it is that men's characters come to depend, in no small degree, upon their breakfasts and their dinners. Has any reader of these, pages ever known a man or woman who, without proper compensation to the system, chose- to play vegetarian or total abstainer, who has shown also weakness of character, and a crotchetiness upon sundry points irreconcilable with the belief that they enjoy a true soundness of mental health ? On what morbid mv pressions do we find young ladies feasting their minds when they have once abandoned their allegiance due to bread and mutton ! The holy men of old, who went into the desert to starve themselves into sanctity, would have been infinitely holier had they been healthy labourers in their Great Majesty's vineyord, applying sound minds to the love and comfort of their neighbours. There was use then, no doubt, in their extravagant antagonism of a life of heavenly contemplation with the turmoil of a world wholly immersed in rude physical struggle. We do not discuss the state of society that begot and supported a delusion, and gave, it, as it gave at other times to yet more conspicuous delusions, its place in the grtat system of human history. Those half-starved men, with their mental disease, and its attendant visions and delusions, must have been in a very large number of cases incurable lunatics.— Dickens' Household Words. An unfortunate female was under cross examination by a brow beater. "Madam," he demanded, " what sort of conduct have you pursued through life that should subject you to the suspicion of this outrage upon the plaintiff?" She answered, "Impudence, which has been the making of you, and has been my ruin."