AND

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AN ADDRESS FROM THE PEACE SOCIETY TO THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,

The perpetual agitation in favour of increased war expenditure has recently received fresh impetus. A most deliberate and determined effort is being made to create an alarm in the country, under cover of which more money may be drawn from the pockets of the taxpayers, and more burdens added to those which already press heavily upon all our fellowcitizens. Appeals are being made to public patriotism and to fear. Urgency is declared, and it is taken for granted, by all classes of advocates, that the only thing left for the nation, with whom it is admitted rests the ultimate decision, is absolute and unconditional surrender to a supposed necessity.

There are indications that this loud and persistent clamour is beginning to take effect. The Premier, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary for War, and others, speaking on behalf of the Government, have maintained the need for special expenditure in the coming Session of Parliament; and some have even intimated that a vote to a considerable amount will be asked for ; while Lord Brassey, whose official connection with the late Government entitles him to speak with authority, has admitted that an additional seven millions of money, at the very least, are required almost immediately for that purpose. It is not likely that the amount which will be asked for by the Government, will be less than the minimum virtually conceded already by their political

adversaries.

We invite you, therefore, to a calm review of the situation, and ask your patient and candid consideration of the following facts:

During the past twenty years we have spent, on the navy alone, the enormous sum of £215,144,717, and during the last five years the sum of £60,407,112. This expenditure shows a regularly increasing ratio throughout the whole period. For the first five years the average annual expenditure was £9,653,248, and for the last five £12,081,422, or an increase of nearly 25 per cent. This is for the navy alone; the inclusion of the army expenditure would increase the totals immensely. At the close of the last financial year, the cost of our naval and military forces was £31,918,879, making a total for this one year, including the interest on the National or War Debt, and other charges, of £58,534,018.

It may well be asked, "What has become of all these millions?" and "How comes it to pass that, after paying so dearly, the navy is still inefficient, and the country in such a defenceless state that, as Lord Charles Beresford has stated, 'We are living in a state of false conviction, as regards our security.""

If this statement be true, it proves, even from the standpoint of the agitators, that there have been gross waste and culpable negligence; and if it be not true, then the country is being deliberately misled,

[PRICE 2d.

As a matter of fact, however, in the course of the year 1888, seventeen men-of-war, representing a total of 35,255 tons and an average speed of 15.8 knots, were launched, and several of these have been already prepared for sea-service; while the list of war ships which are being built, or which have been ordered to be built, is a far more imposing one. It includes thirty-six ships, with a total tonnage of 64,535 tons, and an average intended speed of 17.9 knots, most of which will be launched during 1889.

This, we would remind you, represents a slightly increased, as already shown, but yet normal, expenditure on the Navy. The necessity, therefore, of a sudden and enormously increased outlay cannot be so urgent.

We are told, however, that these ships rapidly become obsolete, and, therefore, comparatively useless, even before they are completed, owing to the rapid progress of scientific invention. Numbers are laid up at our dock-yards that have hardly been at sea since thousands of pounds were expended on them. Some have never been to sea at all. That means, of course, that in the race with science we must ever be worsted, until invention shall have reached its ultimate point, and, consequently, at this rate, spend what we will, we shall never possess an efficient fleet.

Other nations, however, have, in the very necessity of things, the same difficulty to encounter, and cannot enjoy any advantage over us in this respect. Comparisons are being urged between our fleet, and those of other countries, especially that of France, with the object of showing that they have outstripped us, in spite of our increasing expenditure, and placed us at a comparative disadvantage. Facts and figures are against this representation; but, even if it were so, that would not justify our plunging into reckless expenditure, under the influence of an interested and manufactured panic.

Fellow-countrymen, this panic cry is an old one, though it is repeated anew with a unanimity, sameness of argument, and persistency, which make it appear concerted and organised. We, therefore, earnestly desire you to consider what it is we are asked to do. It is well to count the cost before the outlay is incurred, to try and see the end of the way before the journey is begun. And here, happily, we are left in no uncertainty.

A leading General has advocated Conscription for the Army, and though the first feeling evoked is one of indignant repudiation, and the second, a tendency to scout the suggestion as unworthy of serious consideration, it must not be forgotten that the proposal expresses the tendency, aims, and ultimate necessity of that militarism he represents, and which speaks through him, and that, unquestionably, if we are to compete with Continental nations, and to take part in Continental wars, Conscription, which Lord Wolseley himself once described as the "infernal and cursed burden of universal service," will prove a simple necessity. Are we as a nation prepared for this? not, let it be not only be repudiated, but legitimately resisted from the very first.

If

A similar necessity waits upon augmented naval expenditure. Never forget that it will involve the maintenance of the service at the level to which it is to be raised. The last naval

scare, according to the testimony of Sir Richard Fitzgerald, before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, meant the raising of the numbers in the Navy from 56,900 men and boys to 62,400. But it cannot rest there. We are told that in "the great work of the coming Session," which "is to be the passing of a measure for the national defence," we must obviously secure a navy large enough, "to protect our own shores from invasion; to protect all parts of the Empire lying beyond the seas; to maintain the communication between the United Kingdom and its various dependencies, and, lastly, to protect the commerce of the Empire, so as to secure to us a constant and sufficient supply of food."

While these four principles are accepted as axioms, it is nevertheless added, that it is" obvious, to any one who considers for a moment, that these four principles carry us a very short way" that we must be prepared for every possible change and combination of policy and force among other nations, all of whom must be looked upon as possible enemies; and that so, in short, we ought to have, and as a finality must have, a navy capable, in the event of war, of "driving coalesced mankind from the universal ocean."

This, fellow-countrymen, is the goal before us-the inevitable goal, as is frankly and honestly avowed by some of the panicmongers, and advocates of the course we are urged to adopt : conscription for the army, and a navy strong enough to cope single-handed with the combined navies of the world.

It has been abundantly shown, from past experience, that naval expenditure, hastily incurred because of a naval scare, has, instead of really adding to our national defences, invariably led to a mere waste of the public money. This was the testimony of Admiral Sir A. H. Hoskins before the Select Committee already referred to. We cannot afford this waste. On the Coninent, in town and country alike, the people groan under the oppression of militarism, and welter in the misery it occasions. In our own country, increased burdens would only intensify conditions already fraught with peril, and probably lead to social and political complications, in comparison with which dangers from foreign combinations would be as nothing.

The deplorable position in which the mad race for soldiers and fleets is placing the nations of Europe, is commented on and lamented throughout universal civilisation. It brings us face to face with a simple alternative :-Is this race to continue until all are ruined, and the capitalists and the wage-earners find their occupation gone? Are the industrious toilers to go on providing the evermore costly materials of war, and maintaining, at an increasing rate, the soldiers of vast armies, and the seamen of enormous fleets?

Or, are we to appeal to those who govern us to pause ere they run headlong in a race alike destructive of property, morality, and religion?

If half the attention which is now given to the preparations for war, and for the destruction of mankind, were bestowed by the Governments of so-called civilised nations on meeting one another and arranging for the limitation of armies and fleets, and on the formation of Tribunals to which international disputes could be referred, we should soon be relieved from the pressure of our fiscal and from many of our moral burdens.

All the best material interests of peoples and of States, all the doctrines of morality, all the precepts of religion, point to peace. All that is destructive to the well-being of mankind urges continued preparations for war.

The duty of Christian England is obvious. It is to lead the way towards a better state of things, and not by precept only, but also by example, to decline to act on the advice of the naval and military men, who cry for ever "give, give," to a system which has no limit nor end to its demands, and which has been well described as 66 a moral gangrene which diffuses its humours through the whole political and social system."

Parliament is assembling. It will be too late to act when the irrevocable step has been taken. We trust that all true lovers of their country will seize the opportunity to communicate with their representatives, to petition and protest against the avowed proposal of the Government, and in other ways to do all that is in their power to preserve the country

from a mistake that may easily lead to, and, in our present circumstances, be in itself, a crime. JOSEPH W. PEASE, President. W. EVANS DARBY, Secretary.

PEACE SOCIETY:

47, NEW BROAD STREET,

LONDON, E.C., 15th February, 1889.

THE PREMIER AND THE PEACE SOCIETY.

[THE following Memorial has been sent to the Prime Minister by the Peace Society, 47, New Broad Street, London, E.C.]:"To the Most Noble the MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

"The Memorial of the Committee of the Peace Society sheweth :

"That your Memorialists have observed, with the greatest concern, the persistent efforts which have been recently made to create an alarm in the public mind as to the assumed inadequacy of the naval and military forces of the country.

"Your Memorialists strongly deprecate the spirit of suspicion and rivalry which permeates these panic representations, and which has prompted the proposals based upon them.

"They believe that these proposals can only result in additions to the onerous public burdens with which the commerce and industry of the country are already oppressed, and stimulate corresponding movements in other countries, thus preparing the way for still larger demands hereafter.

"They are satisfied that the armaments which already entail crushing burdens upon the populations of Europe, and absorb the means which might otherwise be applied to mitigate the ignorance and misery with which they are still afflicted, so far from justifying the only plausible reason alleged on their behalf, that they are necessary to the maintenance of peace, have, on the contrary, always proved the most dangerous provocatives to

war.

"Your Memorialists are, moreover, profoundly convinced that the perpetuation, and, still more, the expansion of this pernicious system, constitutes a grievous imputation on the Christian Statesmanship of Europe, and an increasingly adverse and disturbing element in the development and happiness of States.

"They believe with the late Sir Robert Peel that the true interest of Europe is to come to some common accord, so as to enable every country to reduce those military armaments, which belong to a state of war rather than peace,' and 'that no greater benefit could be conferred on the human race than the consent of these Powers to maintain their relative position to each other, and to reduce their respective forces.'

"Your Memorialists, therefore, earnestly pray that your Lordship's Government, instead of yielding to demands originated in panic, will deal with this enormous and ever-increasing evil, by endeavouring to establish an understanding among the Great Powers for a mutual and simultaneous reduction of their armaments. "On behalf of the Committee,

THE LATE MR. HENRY RICHARD, M.P. SEVERAL friends of the late Mr. Richard have expressed a wish to perpetuate in some fitting way the memory of his lifelong and valuable services to the cause of Peace, of Religious Equality, and of Political and Social Progress, and have suggested that a Monument of a suitable character should be erected in Abney Park Cemetery, where his remains are interred, near to those of many of his fellow-labourers in Christian and philanthropic effort.

A small representative Committee has been formed to give practical effect to that suggestion, and we shall be glad to find that it has general approval also, and, in that case, to place names on the list of contributors to the required fund. We may add that it is wished to raise about £300. Contributions may be sent to the account of the "Richard Memorial Fund," at Messrs. Dimsdale & Co.'s, 50, Cornhill, E.C.

JOSEPH W. PEASE, Treasurer.
ALFRED J. SHEPHEARD, Hon. Sec.

MR. GEORGE HOWELL, M.P.

MR. G. HOWELL, M.P., has given notice of the following Motion for the new Session of Parliament :

"To call attention to the administration at the Admiralty and War Office, and the enormous expenditure upon naval and military establishments, and to move: That, in the opinion of this House, the cost of our naval and military establishments is excessive and wasteful, and that the administration, both at the Admiralty and the War Office, is defective as regards direct responsibility, effective supervision, and financial control; and that there is urgent need for immediate improvement in the administration of naval and military affairs."

This is the sort of Motion which many of the Parliamentary representatives of the friends of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform should be urged by their constituents to bring forward. Mr. Howell has already rendered excellent service, in more ways than one, in this direction. Our readers should urge their Parliamentary representatives to support him in his praiseworthy endeavours.

THE POPE AND EUROPEAN PEACE.

THE Daily Telegraph remarks :

"In the name of Christianity and Civilisation, the Pope has spoken words of peace and reason to Europe, in his Allocution of the 12th February, 1889. They will not be heard or heeded, as we very well know; yet, at all events, the voice of a better age and happier humanity resounds in them, and the venerable Pontiff rightfully discharges the duty of his holy office when he thus pronounces aggressive wars accursed, and invokes for the settlement of the questions which keep the Continent under arms, the spirit of brotherhood and justice.

"Arms alone,' says his Holiness, and the progress made in military science, or in the perfecting of weapons of destruction, cannot suffice to avert the perils of the time. Moreover, even although it be permitted to employ arms in self-defence, Nature does not tolerate might being held sufficient surety for right. Peace must be preserved, by rendering to each what belongs to him, and by strictly adhering to the dictates of justice.'

This just and lofty language, enforced by other earnest passages in the Allocution, comes fitly from the lips of the Head of the Catholic Church, and ought to be echoed by those who are most prominent in every great religious communion. What it proclaims is, what every enlightened man knows and believes, that the last and largest maxim of faith and morals,

the widest and soundest dictate of international intercourse, the truest of all truths, and the most fruitful of all wise counsels, is the Golden Rule laid down by the Founder of Christianity, Do unto others, as you would that they should do unto you.' None are more profoundly aware than ourselves how vain it is to state this, and how idly the Divine injunction is proclaimed amid the passions and ambitions of the Powers of Europe. Those Powers will go on arming; the foolish peoples whom they represent will go on nourishing old feuds and resentments, and feeding the monstrous armies which eat up the profits of industry with their youth and their money; until finally the explosion may come, and a war, unexampled for destructiveness, costliness, and ruin, may break from the gathering clouds of diplomacy, to deluge with blood what we continue ironically to call Christendom.' In family life, in the intercourse of fellow-citizens and comrades, and between mother-countries and their colonies, we have learned more or less sufficingly the lesson of doing as we would be done by. National laws are based upon equal justice, and the arm of the Executive enforces equity between man and man if it be neglected or denied.

"There is, however, no International Code of any real and effective authority, because there is no common Tribunal which can administer and enforce it-and, in the absence of this, the mere mention of the simple rule which would settle all the difficulties of Europe, and relieve its groaning populations of the blood-tax now crushing them, sounds in all ears like an impossible standard, mocked by practical statesmanship-and not so much as even considered in diplomacy. Diplomacy, indeed, smiles with contempt when an aged Pontiff reminds the Powers and the peoples that war is only a necessary evil, so long as men will not realise the undoubted fact that the highest interest of all is the common progress of the race; and that peaceful justice could and would arrange every knotty problem of the age without spilling a drop of blood.

"This will be styled too fanciful. Official persons will deny that the questions which keep Europe under arms might all be accommodated by discussion and the principles of give and take. Yet when a convulsive war is over, what solution do we ever arrive at which is better or newer than that which might have been attained by a collection of sensible statesmen deputed to make a settlement? Let the chief points of dispute or difficulty between the nations be briefly enumerated. We confidently believe that a Committee of Experts, drawn from the respective countries, could establish lasting concordats upon all of them more easily than many a railway or banking matter is quietly composed once a week in the City.

"Between France and Germany flourishes the formidable blood feud which has Alsace-Lorraine' for its badge. Why must it embitter for ever the relations of these two noble and gifted peoples? What evil spell forbids that with the help of time, of right feeling, and, possibly of feasible reconciliations, this vast vendetta should be healed in some better way than by drenching anew the banks of the Rhine with gore, or else standing armed to the teeth, while the youthful manhood of both countries wastes its years in barracks, and commerce is crippled to feed cannons and rifles with endless store of ammunition?

"Then there is the 'crux of the Balkan Peninsula, where Austria and Russia glower at each other across the Carpathians, while Germany vigilantly watches. This peril and perplexity has many branches, like others upon the list, and involves, no doubt, all sorts of projects, fears, and interests. Neverthe less, the chief interest all round is, surely, to attain some solution which will cost neither the horror and ruin of a general conflict, nor the deadly daily loss of the armed truce; and such a solution, we fearlessly affirm, a handful of honest men could elicit out of the simple elements of fair play and mutual understanding.

Italy and France, also, have their diplomatic bones to snarl over in Tunis and Tripoli, in Nice and Savoy, and the Mediterranean generally; while we could recite, of course, a score of minor troubles at Zanzibar, Samoa, Panama, and elsewhere -points of small importance, except that any spark may fire a magazine, and any misunderstanding grow into an opportunity for those who, far from hating war, believe in it, and almost

welcome it, when their plans are ripe, and the prospects of success are good. There is, nevertheless, no single difficulty great or small upon the list, which exceeds in complexity hundreds of varied disputes settled constantly in business and in private life, by good sense, by adequate information, and by the spirit of justice; and if the populations were only wise enough to insist upon Peace as the first and best of their requirements, and to regard War as an evil too damaging to tolerate for whatever gains, or whatever bygone animosities, the experts of the European system could draw them up a simple modus vivendi by which their armies might be reduced to the smallest defensive scale, and under which the hoarse dull drum might sleep, and man be happy yet.'

"It will not befall, of course; and none the more because the most venerable spokesman for the ethics of CHRIST declares that it ought to be and might be. Nor will Heaven intervene to save from their own sinful and stupid infatuation the nations which, having and knowing the better way, go floundering on through batred, malice, and all uncharitableness' to build their history upon each other's ruin. We continue arming against each other, withdrawing from the home the young man, from the labourer the profits of his labour, loading the seas with costly vessels of battle, cumbering the land with the tramp of martial millions, and producing at last, by fear and jealousy, the conflict which pride and anger had prepared, as if war could bring any issue which peace and justice might not anticipate and indicate. It comes at last to this shameful point, that an armed truce is preserved mainly out of mutual terror and the incertitudes of warfare. The nations, created to be harmonious but differing notes of one humanity, vie in producing novelties of bloodthirsty invention. If tranquillity still exists, and is prolonged in Europe, it is the repose not of reasonable and kindly Powers, asking only what they are willing to concede, but the crouching attitude of relentless rivals, dreading the enemy whom they hate, and almost as much afraid of being ruined by victory as by defeat. Such is the condition of Europe at this day, all for the sake of a few really needless quarrels and old-standing puzzles, which are only irreconcilable because our international barbarism is incurable. His Holiness does well to denounce so shameful and disheartening a spectacle, and to proclaim the truth that the cure for this popular and diplomatic madness lies in the simple formula of "Peace and Equity." The mild lightnings of his pious anger, however, will have as little effect as our own suggestion that Europoen problems should be settled by a board of qualified business statesmen; and Christendomif nothing happens to avert it-will still continue to blunder onward to the edge of the precipice."

THE CHANCELLOR ON PANIC EXPEDITIONS. THE Chancellor of the Exchequer, Right Hon. G. J. Goschen, M.P., in a speech at Stratford on June 30, said :—

"I must not count too much on an expanding revenue, and, though no leaps and bounds in the revenue are to be expected, who can tell but that there may not be a leap and a bound in the expenditure for the Navy and the Army. The golden eggs of national prosperity require a warm and comfortable atmosphere if they are to be laid with regularity, while any circumstances of panic may disturb these most interesting operations.

"Gentlemen, there is nothing so bad for national finance as panic.

"It interferes with the regularity of receipts, and it is also most detrimental, by creating wild expenditure at a given moment, without all those checks and that foresight, which is so indispensable if we are to retain some control over the amounts which are spent even on the most important and paramount objects.

In

"It is certain that if the inventors were granted a free hand, without any restriction, there would be a very considerable waste of public money in regard to ships and guns and arms. vention outstrips manufacture, and therefore we must always be behindhand, whatever we may do, and fail to reach the ideal standard of excellence which is set up. But though this failure

to reach the ideal standard is frequently pointed out to us, we are not so often told of the ships and guns of other countries, and how far they, too, fail to reach this ideal perfection. Again, you will see how careful we must be, in these rapid strides which are made in the progress of inventions, that we keep pace with the national interests; but we must not outstrip them before the problems are worked out, or sink our millions, which will form an immense reserve, if at any time they should be required. We must not sink our millions on defences, and run the risk of having obsolete ships in the docks and obsolete arms in our arsenals."

SCHOOL BOY SOLDIERS.

A WELL-KNOWN minister, in the neighbourhood of London, having sent his son to a certain large school in the suburbs, has been grieved and surprised to receive an intimation, from the Head Master, that the elder lads are to be formed into a Cadet Corps for drill with light carbines, and that he himself has been duly gazetted as a Captain. The minister sends us some correspondence on the matter, from which we quote the following passages:

I. FROM THE MASTER OF THE SCHOOL.

"For the purpose of more thoroughly attending to the physical training of pupils under my charge, I have received the permission of the Government to form a Cadet Corps, in connection with a Regiment.

Light carbines have been issued, by permission of the Secretary of State for War, and a course of drill has been prescribed that will especially benefit growing boys and improve their physique and deportment, besides being conducive to habits of obedience and orderliness. Tunics and belts will be provided and be kept at the Head Quarters (the College). "I have been gazetted Captain by the War Office, and take entire charge and responsibility."

II. FROM THE PARENT.

"I am glad to see, from your report, that my son has made very satisfactory progress under your care, and that his conduct has been very good. With regard to your circular on the subject of what you call the physical training of the pupils, allow me to say I have read it with great pain. I sent my boy to your school to be fitted for life as a civilian, not as a soldier, and I did so in the belief that the school was, and would continue to be, a purely civil school, and not a semi-military school. I regret that you should think yourself unable to make the boys orderly and obedient, without the aid of a drill sergeant; you take too modest a view of your power and influence, I am sure. Had I no child under your care, it would still have given me great pain to hear that your school was to be turned into a recruiting ground for the army, and that your boys were to be under the demoralising and degrading influence of the men whose trade it is to kill their fellows. Of course you are aware that the army authorities who have furnished you with certain accoutrements for the boys, and have gazetted you Captain, expect a return, a quid pro quo, and what is that but the enlistment of some of the boys? Give boys a military training, let them come under the influence of soldiers, and grow up in a school where a soldier's life is set before them as a desirable object of ambition, and a certain proportion of them will be sure to choose that life. You know this as well as the Horse Guards, and this movement is, on your part, a deliberate attempt to draw boys into the army.

"I suppose you are willing to do your share in helping to pre pare England for the slavery of Conscription.

"How much nobler, in my judgment, would it have been for you, as a guide and trainer of boys, had you quietly taken every opportunity to show your pupils how irrational and unchristian is the use of physical force, by a nation, as well as by an individual, for the settlement of a difference. You might, in your position, do much to discourage this brutal love of violence, which is a reproach to our modern civilisation, and to give us a generation of Englishmen who should seek peace by working righteousness. Even the economical argument