In the FIRST place, the expense of supporting armies and navies is immensely great.-M. Thiers, recently a distinguished member of the French Chamber of Deputies, estimates the annual expense of each soldier in France at 733 francs or 131 dollars, of each soldier in Austria at 653 francs or 117 dollars, of each soldier in Prussia at 1000 francs or 180 dollars. The expense of maintaining each English soldier he estimates much higher, than the expense of an Austrian, Prussian, or French soldier. And whether it be owing to this circumstance or not, it seems to be the fact, that, while other nations are greatly burdened and depressed by the expenses incident to the maintenance of large armies, England is burdened and borne down in a still greater degree. Some years since a statement was made in the London Weekly Review, of the wars, in which England has been engaged and of the expenses incurred in consequence of them, which is worthy of particular attention.

"Of 127 years, terminating in 1815, England spent 65 in war and 62 in peace. The war of 1688, after last ing nine years, and raising our expenditure in that period to thirty-six millions, was ended by the treaty of Ryswick in 1697. Then came the war of the Spanish succession, which began in 1702, concluded in 1713, and absorbed sixty-two and a half millions of our money. Next was the Spanish war of 1739, settled finally at Aix-laChapelle in 1748, after costing us nearly fifty-four millions. Then came the Seven Years' War of 1756, which terminated with the treaty of Paris in 1763, in the course of which we spent one hundred and twelve millions. The next was the American War of 1775, which lasted eight years. Our national expenditure in this time was 136 millions. The French Revolutionary War began in 1793, lasted nine years, and exhibited an expenditure of 464 millions. The war against Bonaparte began in 1803

and ended in 1815. During those twelve years, we spent 1159 millions; 771 of which were raised by taxes, 388 by loans. In the Revolutionary War we borrowed 201 millions; in the American, 104 millions; in the Seven Years' War, 60 millions; in the Spanish War of 1739, 29 millions; in the War of the Spanish succession, 32 1-2 millions; in the War of 1688, 20 millions:-total borrowed in the seven wars, during 65 years, about 834 millions. In the same time we raised by taxes, 1189 millions; thus forming a total expenditure of 2023 millions!" According to a recent publication, showing the extent, population, revenue, and debt of the principal States of Europe for 1829, the debt of Russia was at that time £ 35,550,000, of Austria £78,100,000, of France £194,400,000, of Spain £70,000,000, of Netherlands, including Belgium £ 148,500,000, of Prussia £ 29,701,000, of Great Britain £819,600,000. These enormous masses of debt were incurred in consequence of wars. Great nations have been reduced to the necessity of going from city to city, and of borrowing, on almost any conditions, the money of their merchants. And it must be recollected, that during the whole period, in which these debts, incurred for military purposes, have been accumulating, the people, harassed and bleeding at every pore, have been compelled to pay excessive taxes for the same object. Can a nation in such a condition, burdened with such debts resulting from war, and at the same time overwhelmed with taxation for direct military purposes, be regarded as otherwise than miserably exhausted and wretched! And can there, so far as the national resources and wealth are concerned, be any reasonable doubt as to the injurious and destructive tendency of wars! "England and France, (says Bonaparte in one of his Conversations at St. Helena,) held in their hands the fate of the world, and particularly that of European civil

*.

ization. What injury did we not do to each other! What good might we not have done! Under Pitt's system, [he says nothing of his own guilt,] we desolated the world, and what has been the result. You imposed on France a tax of fifteen hundred millions of francs and raised it by means of Cossacks. I laid a tax of seven hundred millions, [probably meaning pounds sterling,] on you and made you raise it with your own hands by your parliament. Even now after the victory you have obtained, who can tell, whether you may not sooner or later sink under the burden ?" In this last inquiry, by whatever jealousy of spirit it might have been prompted in Napoleon, there is something worthy of the attention of the friends of England. Great Britain, with all the wealth of her cities and the grandeur of her nobles, with all the resources of her commerce, and the unrivalled skill of her manufactures, finds it difficult to conceal it from the world, that her giant footsteps are treading on the brink of bankruptcy. If she falls, it will be the result of war, of victorious war; for war is destructive to the victors, as well as the vanquished. If she sustains this great trial, which now presses so heavily on the resources of her genius and the endurance of her patriotism, where is the recompense, either in the past or the present, for her starving operatives, her beggared peasantry, the millions of her ignorant and wretched population, whose cry and wailing, amid the hum of her manufactures and the roar of her mighty cities, so often comes up, as if from the interminable depths, and thrills in the heart of philanthropy in the distant corners of the world!

In the SECOND place, we must take into view the loss, suffered by the community, in consequence of the abstraction of the vast numbers, that are employed in armies and navies, from profitable employments. A nation's * Las Casas, Pt. 111. p. 40.

resources are to be considered as diminished, not only by what it is compelled to pay, but also by what it might have saved to itself from its own efforts by taking a different course. The loss, in this point of view, is immense. In time of war, the land forces of Europe, as we have already had occasion to remark, amount to 4,578, 430. And yet this vast body of men, consisting precisely of that portion which is most active and efficient, depend wholly upon others for their support; they do nothing of themselves towards this object; the whole burden of their maintenance is thrown upon others. As to all positively beneficial purposes, aside from the benefits which are commonly though erroneously supposed to be connected with war, they are mere drones in the social and political hive, utterly useless. If these men were

required to beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; if they were permitted to remain in a situation, where they could apply themselves to the business of agriculture, to the fisheries, to navigation, and the common arts of peace, what beneficial results would speedily follow! The inhabitants at home would not only be freed from the immense expense attendant upon supporting them in idleness; but there would be a positive and rapid accession to the resources and wealth of the community, which would diffuse a vivifying and cheering influence through all classes of people and all branches of industry. The face of nature and of the useful arts would be changed at once. What sterile and desolate tracts of country would be rendered fertile; what marshes would be reclaimed; what numbers of canals would be opened and railroads erected; what an increase of the productions of the earth necessary for man's subsistence; what an impulse would be given to commerce!

The great cause of humanity, embraced in the gospel

principle, THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF, is but very imperfectly understood. Mankind are but just awaking to a perception of its glory. They begin to feel for their brother man; they begin to pity the heathen and to send to them the missionary and the Bible; they begin to sympathise in the wretchedness of the slave and are striving to break his chains; they begin to explore prisons and dungeons and to shed the light of benevolence on those abodes of darkness; but this is only the first step, the commencement of a great work of benevolence, the length and breadth of which the most glowing philanthropists have but imperfectly explored. It is indeed right, that we should begin with those, whose condition is the most debased and hopeless; but as the noble cause of philanthropy rolls on, it will be found that there is also a great work to be done at home. Every man must be furnished with his farm or his workshop; the means of moral and religious education must be brought to every man's door; every man must have it in his power to reap some enjoyment even in the present life, not indeed as a brute animal rioting in the excess of passion, but as a rational and moral being; so that happy faces, radiant with intelligence and virtue, may be seen looking out from the humblest cottages and even from workshops and manufactories.

In

But in vain shall we look for the realization of this delightful vision, so long as wars continue to exist. consequence of the abstraction of soldiers from profitable pursuits, those, who remain at home, are compelled, without the least aid from the military portion of the nation, to bear the immense amount, requisite for the support of armies and navies, in addition to the no small burden of the ordinary taxation. The number of those who pay is diminished, while they are compelled to pay