ber of their inhabitants, and the extent of their preparations, debts and expenditures for war. We copy these calculations as we find them; but the reader will perceive that certain portions of the world, such as some of the South American States, most of Africa, and nearly all the islands of the Pacific, are omitted; and that the estimates respecting the population, revenue and military forces of Great Britain and India, are repeated, or commingled in a way which renders it impossible to gather the truth from the data here furnished. We give also the sum total in each of the columns ; and we deem them sufficiently accurate for a general and comparative view. Proportion of revenue and debts to the population. The The population of China is variously estimated from 170,000,000 to 360,000,000. The latest and most trustworthy estimates would make it 360,000,000. † Revenues of the East India Company. VOL. II.-NO. XIII. 18 revenue, even with the omissions in the table above, and on the supposition of 800,000,000 inhabitants in the world, would average nearly nine francs to every person, old and young, male and female, on the globe. There are still larger omissions in the column of debts, all of them war-debts; but the result would still make an average of more than forty-five francs to every individual. Mark, also, the strong contrast between Christian and unevangelized nations. Persia, Turkey, Morocco, China, Japan. and Siam, with a population of 363,190,000, expend only 1,472,000,000 francs, and have no debts at all; while Christendom, with a number of inhabitants considerably less, is loaded with a war-debt of more than 35,000,000,000 francs, and expends, mainly for war-purposes, 5,323,412,000; an average more than five times as great. Military forces. The reader cannot fail to compare Christian with pagan nations on this point. Austria, with a population of 32 millions, has an army of more than 270,000; and Russia, with 56 millions of people, keeps 710,000 men ready for the work of human butchery; while China, with more then 300 millions, has only 914,000 warriors; a proportion, compared with all Christendom, of about one to five. Russia has one soldier to 79 inhabitants; China, one to 328. WAR STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES. Revolutionary War. Paid out in sound money,. $135,193,703 Paper money issued, most of it worthless in the end,. 359,547,027 Borrowed of France,.. 7,962,959 $502,703,689 FROM 1791 TO 1832. Here we find the civil list-almost the only department tha would be necessary were there no war-system-to have absorbed only about one twenty-third part of our national expenses during forty-one years! If we suppose only one half of the miscellaneous expenses, and of those for foreign intercourse, to have been occasioned by war, the support of this system, with only three years of actual warfare, must have cost us about $777,000,000 in forty-one years; an average of nearly $19,000,000 a year, and full twelve times as much as all the other operations of our government. If we include merely what is expressly put to the account of war, its expenses. will be found still to have been nine times as great as those for all other purposes put together! Only about one tenth as much for the peaceful operations of government as for war-purposes ! Here we have, in a time of peace, more than $30,500,000 in one form and another for war-purposes; seventeen times as much as for civil offices, and about ten times as much as for all other objects! Here we find more than $26,000,000 spent upon the warsystem, and probably less than one-eighth of this sum for necessary and useful purposes. IN 1838, DURING THE FIRST THREE QUARTERS. Civil list, foreign intercourse, and miscellaneous,. Navy,.. Total for all purposes,. $4,029,674 15,731,323 4,325,563 . $28,427,218 The round estimate for the remaining quarter is $12,000,000; and, if the war-expenses have been in the same proportion, we have wasted the last year about $27,000,000 upon this system of violence and blood; more than thirty times as much as the average annual expenses for the civil operations of our government from 1791 to 1832. We leave the reader to make his own comments, and draw inferences for himself. AN ADDRESS, Delivered before the Peace Society of Amherst College, July 4, 1838, by Rev. R. P. STEBBINS. Peace Societies have been organized in most of the New England colleges; and we are glad to see our friends in the flourishing seminary at Amherst setting an example so worthy of universal imitation as that of devoting our national anniversary to the cause of peace. We trust their example will be followed until peace, instead of war, shall be, throughout our land, the inspiring theme on every return of that day; and if they should always be so fortunate in the selection of an advocate, we are quite sure they will find no difficulty in sustaining the interest of such an annual celebration. The address before us is worthy of being transferred entire to our pages; but we can give only a brief analysis, and a few extracts. It first illustrates the impolicy of war, but dwells chiefly on the inconsistency of war with Christianity, as "opposites in the sentiments which they cherish, in the principles of moral obligation which they establish, and in the standard of true greatness which they erect;" points illustrated with great force, and put beyond the possibility of doubt in any candid mind. MISTAKEN MEANS OF PEACE. "Whatever may be true in respect to the benefit of a standing army to preserve internal peace in despotic governments, in our own, a military establishment, especially a militia system, would be of no avail. The very soldiers would be a part of the people, and they would be the very ones on whom this iron police ought to operate; the very ones to feel the effect of a power which they alone possess, and which, of course, they would not put forth to their own ruin. The idea that we need an army, an organized militia, to preserve internal peace, is no less preposterous, than that we need an astronomer to regulate the sun. And yet in old Massachusetts, we pay more than thirty thousand dollars annually, out of the public treasury, for the support of the militia, to protect you and me from our neighbors. Yes, you were spurned, when you kneeled at the door of the legislature, and begged for a covering to shelter you, when you asked for food for the mind, when you asked for the means of exalting the immortal spirit into communion with truth, while we pay thirty thousand dollars every year, for polishing swords, grinding bayonets, and scouring cannon! Spirit of freedom, where art thou fled! Genius of literature, which divided the children's bread to build a school-house in the wilderness, hast thou left these hills for ever! I am not speaking of fancies of my own. I am stating naked truths; truths which you here feel. I would give more for one school-house to protect my rights against force, than for a regiment of soldiers; I would give more for one young man, well educated within these halls, to protect me against violence, than for a troop of lancers. Force in our country is powerless. Truth is omnipotent; and on it alone can we rely. Spend the money, which we now squander for warlike preparation, in educating the hundred thousand voters who cannot read the constitution of our country, nor write their own names, and we should then be safe. Better sell our arsenals and muskets, our warships and swords, and buy spelling-books, and turn our generals and commodores into school-masters, if we wish to prepare for, and keep peace, than increase our army and navy as we are doing. I never had a doubt but that in our quarrel with France, we should have had war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt, had we been ready for it. Had our coast been lined with ships of war, like blood hounds ready to slip from the leash, the deep would now be reverberating with the roar of our cannon, and be stained with the blood of our fathers and brothers. Our commanders knew we should be beaten for five years if we began, and they had no desire to fight unless they could reap a rich harvest of glory. To prevent war, be unprepared for it; so when the passions are up, they will have time to subside, ere we can act. A warlike spirit and preparation is the most active and deadly foe of peace. Who is the peaceful man; he who carries his dirk and pistols, or he who is unarmed, and careful in the discharge of his duties? Is not the man with a bowie knife looking out for insult, seeking for an opportunity to show his VOL. II.-NO. XIII. 18* |