beyond the reach of the masses of workingmen half a century ago, but which are now in common use.

With what do the masses purchase their commodities if not with the wages earned by their labor? Does not this prove that increased production means that there is more to be divided among the people creating the added product? and does not this mean higher wages?

The evidence on this point is so cumulative that every branch of trade in every nation furnishes its conclusive proof. Statistics of foreign and domestic commerce demonstrate it, in general, and every new merchant ship and every added ton of freight carried over the thousands of miles of rail-road built each year in the different countries of the world, adds a new link in the chain of evidence found in every chapter of the industrial history of Europe and America.

We reach the conclusion, then, that a higher rate of wages attends the advance of civilization in obedience to a law too strong to be resisted. Here and there for a short time adverse conditions may retard the speed of the vast machinery that adds millions annually to the wealth of the world. But in this we see no nulification of the law,but only its vindication. A short crop checks the accumulation of wealth. What follows immediately? A higher cost to the consumer of the products made scarce by deficient harvests. This is a decrease of wages, because the same rate will purchase less food. On the other hand, a superabundant harvest lowers the price of food; and this is an increase of wages, because the same sum will purchase a larger amount of the products cheapened by abundance.

This shows the folly of those schemes for the mitigation of the evils arising from industrial depression that seek a remedy by crippling production. As a panacea, this would be equivalent to advising an asthmatic patient to put himself on a short allowance of air. Whatever lessens production enhances price, and this, as has been shown, lowers wages. Working upon short time, restricting the use of machinery, limiting the number of apprentices, and in short everything that lessens

the aggregate of wealth, diminishes the common stock from which wages must be paid.

But perhaps it will be asked-Is there no work for the labor reformers and no mission for labor organizations? There certainly is and the need was never greater than now. So long as ignorance or greed or anything stands in the way of a full development of a nation's resources; so long as prejudice blinds the eye of reason to a just discernment of mutual rights and mutual obligations, so long as avarice or vanity diverts the channels of wealth from noble to ignoble uses; so long as the perversity of human will can turn good to evil and lessen where it cannot destroy the beneficent workings of industrial laws and social obligations, there will be a field for cooperative effort wide enough to employ every agency until the most perfect development man can reach is wrought out.

David N. Johnson.

ARTICLE XXXI.

Our National Defenses.

Ir is assumed by many that there is no adequate defense of a nation except such as is to be found in the sinews of war. Our writers on the subject have pictured elaborate schemes of Military defense, in which heavy guns, torpedoes, iron-clads etc. are the only recognized elements of strength. They have deplored our present lack of them as a National weakness, and are even now urging upon Congress and the people a large expenditure of money that we may be put without further delay in better fighting condition.

Lieut. Eugene Griffin of West Point has written a pamphlet which is issued by the Military Service Institution in which the following is advocated:

"A complete system of seacost defenses means, first an outer line of warships; second a skirmish line of torpedo

boats; third, an inner line of land fortifications and channel obstructions; fixed electrical torpedoes; with a reserve of war-ships, torpedo boats, gunboats and other such appliances; wrought iron casemated batteries costing a hundred thousand dollars for every gun placed in them, and breach loading rifles, weighing fifty tons and costing fifty thousand dollars apiece, are among the items which competent army engineers reckon absolutely necessary for safety and protection- Revolving armored turrets, earthen batteries with seventy feet of compact sand to protect them, machine guns such as Hotchkiss, and Gatling and Maxim and Gardner have supplied from American shops for foreign countries, are some of the appliances which are needed to give us peace on our borders."

Is this then the way to preserve peace? To arm ourselves with the deadliest weapons possible and assume a hostile attitude toward the rest of the world?

Henry P. Wells in an article on "The Defenses of our seaports," in Harper's Magazine Nov. 1885, unites with Lieut. Griffin in this view. He says:

"The noted bruiser is treated by all men with studied courtesy; and there is no such sure way to preserve peace as to inspire your opponent with wholesome dread of a contest."

These men then would have our Nation pattern after the "noted bruiser;" and arm ourselves with deadly weapons, display our fighting qualities, and seek to terrify the world into a studied courtesy towards us. We could almost suspect Mr. Wells of" studied " irony here, for surely he must understand that the studied courtesy shown towards the noted bruiser is far removed from genuine respect or honor, and is not at all the feeling which any patriot desires other nations to exercise towards us. And the attitude of the bruiser depending on his fighting qualites to "command" courtesy is not at all the feeling which any intelligent citizen desires our government to display before the world.

This scheme of military defence is a delusion and a danger concerning which our people should not allow themselves to be blinded by men who have axes to grind; men whose profession is that of war or Military Service, or men whose busi

ness it is to make or sell ordnance and iron-clads; or perchance Congressmen who may have the prospective handling of the expenditures.

It is significant that these doleful complaints of National weakness and appeal for increase of Military power come almost entirely from men who have been trained to war, and who can expect no opportunity to distinguish themselves in a time of peace.

We who are trained to the arts of peace believe there is a better way; and we may be credited with as fair a knowledge of our National condition, relationships and dangers, and with having as vital interests at stake in the welfare of our country as they who write upon the other side.

And first we desire to point out the objections to the plan proposed. Note the expensiveness of war defenses. Lieut. Griffin estimates that an expenditure of about $50,000,000 would put the eight principal ports of our country in a state of adequate protection against war risks. Mr. Wells estimates that 61,000,000, would make nine chief ports impregnable. Plans have been proposed in Congress placing the amount needed for Military defense, at $128,000,000. In this connection we may get some light from the experience of other nations.

According to Mr. Lewis Appleton's figures, Russia expends annually on her Military system $230,512,500. Great Britian $168,653,915. France $155,603,775. Germany $113,123,745. Austria $67,068,695. Italy about $60,000,000. Spain and Turkey $30,000,000 each. And even little Holland $17,500,000. Nearly a billion dollars annually in Europe.

And who can set any limit to the expenditure of our Government if we shall commit ourselvers to these schemes of Military defense, and seek to rival other nations in the machinery of war? Every one knows that the most liberal estimate of to-day would be but the beginning of a vast expenditure whose end no man can see, because there would be no end.

Such a vast system of Military and Naval defense as Lieut.

Griffin outlines would require an enormous anuual expendi ture to maintain even in the most favored times of peace, as witness the figures above quoted for the nations of Europe. And such a scheme means to put the yoke of a Military system upon the neck of our Government, with grievous and irremediable burdens of taxation to be borne ever afterwards. Peace would thus be found almost as costly as war, and National support become a curse to the people.

And with all this it is not at all sure that we should have an efficient defence in time of trouble.

As Mr. Wells himself says, "At the close of the war we had the most powerful artillery in the world. But our guns are now mostly obsolete because of the great advance in the science of gunnery."

Our past expenditures for Forts and Batteries have been mostly thrown away as for the the same reason they are now comparatively useless.

No one can wituess the wonderful progress of the last fifty years and see how rapidly the old has given place to the new, without feeling that the works of to-day are also very likely to be outgrown. Progress has not ceased. We have by no means reached the ultimate of improvement in the arts of war. The development of gunnery may have approached a limit. But the use of electricity has but scarcely begun; and what more probable than that when we have built our ironclads and batteries, cast our monstrous guns, and spread torpedoes in our harbor some Edison, developing the study of Aerial Navigation, will reveal new methods of warfare, revolutionize National habits, and leave our costly experiments to decay and rust, a memento of our unwise military zeal. This is not a fiction of the imagination but an exceedingly probable fact in view of experiments already made. And we insist it is folly to enter upon the construction of vast harbor defenses, requiring years in which to complete them and enormous expenditures of the peoples money, when it is not at all improbable that before they are finished they may have become obsolete and comparatively useless.