BABYLON ARRAIGNED BEFORE THE GREAT COURT The Civil, Social and Ecclesiastical Powers of Babylon, Christendom, Now Being Weighed in the Balances—The Arraignment of the Civil Powers—The Arraignment of the Present Social System—The Arraignment of the Ecclesiastical Powers—Even Now, in the Midst of Her Festivities the Handwriting of Her Doom is Traced and May Be Distinctly Read, Though the Trial is Not Yet Completed.
The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. He shall call to the heavens from above [the high or ruling powers], and to the earth [the masses of the people], that he may judge his [professed] people [Christendom]. “Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel [nominal spiritual Israel—Babylon, Christendom], and I will testify against thee. ...Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. Thou givest thy mouth to evil and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother [the true saints, the wheat class]; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” Psa. 50:1,4,7,16-22 As the logical consequence of the great increase of knowledge on every subject providentially granted in this “day of preparation” for Christ’s Millennial reign, the civil and ecclesiastical D_page 76 powers of Christendom, Babylon, are now being weighed in the balances of Justice, in full view of the whole world. The hour of judgment having come, the Judge is now on the bench; the witnesses—the general public—are present; and at this stage of the trial the “Powers that be” are permitted to hear the charges and then to speak for themselves. Their cases are being tried in open court, and all the world looks on with intense and feverish interest. The object of this trial is not to convince the great Judge of the actual standing of these powers; for already we are forewarned of their doom by his “sure word of prophecy”; and already men can read upon the walls of their banqueting halls the writing of the mysterious, but fateful, hand—“MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN!” The present trial, involving the discussion of rights and wrongs, of doctrines, authorities, etc., is to manifest to all men the real character of Babylon, so that, though men have long been deceived by her vain pretensions, they may eventually, through this process of judgment, fully realize the justice of God in her final overthrow. In this trial, her claims of superior sanctity and of divine authority and appointment to rule the world, as well as her many monstrous and contradictory doctrinal claims, are all being called in question. With evident shame and confusion of face before such a throng of witnesses, the civil and ecclesiastical powers, through their representatives, the rulers and the clergy, endeavor to render up their accounts. Never, in all the annals of history, has there been such a condition of things. Never before were ecclesiastics, statesmen and civil rulers examined, cross-questioned and criticized as now at the bar of public judgment, through which the heart-searching Spirit of the Lord is operating upon them to their great confusion. Notwithstanding their determination and effort to avoid D_page 77 the examination and cross-questioning of the spirit of these times, they are obliged to endure it, and the trial proceeds. Babylon Weighed in the Balances While the masses of men are today boldly challenging both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Christendom to prove their claims of divine authority to rule, neither they nor the rulers see that God has granted, or rather permitted, a lease of power* to such rulers as mankind in general might choose or tolerate, whether good or bad, until “the Times of the Gentiles” expire; that during this time, God has permitted the world largely to manage its own affairs and take its own course in self-government, to the end that, in so doing, all men might learn that, in their fallen condition, they are incapable of self-government, and that it does not pay to try to be independent either of God or of each other. Rom. 13:1 ————— *Vol. II, p. 80. The rulers and the ruling classes of the world, not seeing this, but realizing their opportunity, and taking advantage of the less fortunate masses of men, by whose permission and tolerance, whether ignorant or intelligent, they have long been sustained in power, have endeavored to foist upon the illiterate masses the absurd doctrine of the divine appointment and “divine right of kings”—civil and ecclesiastical. And to the end of perpetuating this doctrine, so convenient to their policy, ignorance and superstition have for many centuries been fostered and encouraged among the masses. Only in very recent times have knowledge and education become general. And this has come about by force of providential circumstances, and not by efforts of kings and ecclesiastics. D_page 78 The printing press and steam transportation have been the chief agencies in promoting it. Prior to these divine interpositions, the masses of men, being to a large extent isolated from one another, were unable to learn much beyond their own experiences. But these agencies have been instrumental in bringing about a wonderful increase of travel and of social and business intercourse, so that all men, of whatsoever rank or station, may profit by the experiences of others throughout the whole world. Now the great public is the reading public, the traveling public, the thinking public; and it is fast becoming the discontented and clamorous public, with little reverence left for kings and potentates that have held together the old order of things under which they now so restlessly chafe. It is only about three hundred and fifty years since a statute of the English Parliament made provision for the illiterates among its members, in these words—“any Lord and Lords of the Parliament, and Peer and Peers of the Realm having place or voice in Parliament, upon his request or prayer, claiming the benefit of this act, though he cannot read.” Of the twenty-six Barons who signed the Magna Charta, it is said that three only wrote their names, while twenty-three made their marks. Seeing that the tendency of the general enlightenment of the masses of the people is toward a judgment of the ruling powers and not conducive to their stability, the Russian Minister of the Interior proposed, as a check to the growth of Nihilism, to put an end to the higher education of any members of the poorer classes. In 1887 he issued an order from which the following is an extract: “The gymnasia, high schools and universities will henceforth refuse to receive as pupils or students the children of domestic servants, peasants, tradesmen, petty shopkeepers, farmers, and others D_page 79 of like condition, whose progeny should not be raised from the circle to which they belong, and be thereby led, as long experience has shown...to become discontented with their lot, and irritated against the inevitable inequalities of the existing social positions.” But it is too late in the day for such a policy as this to succeed, even in Russia. It is the policy which the Papacy pursued in the days of its power, but which that crafty institution now realizes would be a failure, and sure to react upon the power attempting it. Light has dawned upon the minds of the masses, and they cannot be relegated to their former darkness. With the gradual increase of knowledge republican forms of government have been demanded, and the monarchial have been of necessity greatly modified by force of their example and the demands of the people. In the dawning light of the new day men begin to see that under the protection of false claims, supported by the people in their former ignorance, the ruling classes have been selfishly making merchandise of the natural rights and privileges of the rest of mankind. And, looking on and weighing the claims of those in authority, they are rapidly reaching their own conclusions, notwithstanding the poor apologies offered. But being themselves actuated by no higher principles of righteousness and truth than the ruling classes, the judgment of the masses is as far from right on the other side of the question, their growing disposition being hastily to ignore all law and order rather than to consider coolly and dispassionately the claims of justice on all sides in the light of God’s Word. While Babylon, Christendom—the present organization and order of society, as represented by her statesmen and her clergy—is being weighed in the balances of public opinion, her many monstrous claims are seen to be foundationless D_page 80 and absurd, and the heavy charges against her—of selfishness and of nonconformity to the golden rule of Christ, whose name and authority she claims—have already overbalanced, and lifted the beam so high that, even now, the world has little patience to hear the further proofs of her really antichristian character. Her representatives call upon the world to note the glory of their kingdoms, the triumphs of their arms, the splendor of their cities and palaces, the value and strength of their institutions, political and religious. They strive to reawaken the old-time spirit of clannish partriotism and superstition, which formerly bowed in submissive and worshipful reverence to those in authority and power; which lustily shouted, “Long live the king!” and reverently regarded the persons of those who claimed to be the representatives of God. But those days are past: the remains of the former ignorance and superstition are fast disappearing, and with them the sentiments of clannish patriotism and blind religious reverence; and in their place are found independence, suspicion and defiance, which bid fair ere long to lead to world-wide strife—anarchy. The peoples of the various ships of state talk angrily and threateningly to the captains and pilots, and at times grow almost mutinous. They claim that the present policy of those in power is to lure them to the slave markets of the future and to make merchandise of all their natural rights and reduce them to the serfdom of their fathers. And many insist with increasing vehemence upon displacing the present captains and pilots and letting the ships drift while they contend among themselves for the mastery. But against this wild and dangerous clamor the captains and pilots, the kings and statesmen, contend and hold their places of power, shouting all the while to the people, “Hands off! you will drive the vessel onto the rocks!” Then the religious teachers come forward and D_page 81 counsel submission on the part of the people; and, seeking to emphasize their own authority as from God, they connive with the civil powers to hold the people under restraint. But they, too, begin to realize that their power is gone, and they are casting about for some means to re-enforce it. So they talk of union and cooperation among themselves, and we hear them arguing with the state for more assistance from that source, promising in return to uphold civil institutions with their (waning) power. But all the while a storm is rising, and while the masses of the people, unable to comprehend the danger, continue to clamor, the hearts of those at the helms of the ships fail them for fear of that which they now see must surely come. The ecclesiastical powers, particularly, feel it incumbent upon them to render up their accounts in order to make the best possible showing; thus, if possible, to restrain the revolutionary current of public sentiment against them. But as they attempt to apologize for the meager good results of the past centuries of their power, they only add to their own confusion and perplexity, and arouse the attention of others to the true condition of affairs. These apologies are constantly appearing in the columns of the secular and religious press. And in marked contrast with these are the fearless criticisms from the world at large of both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Christendom. Of these the following extracts from floating press reports are samples. The World’s Arraignment of the Civil Powers “Among all the strange beliefs of the race, there is none stranger than that which made Almighty God select with care some of the most ordinary members of the species, often sickly, stupid and vicious, to reign over great communities under his special protection, as his representatives of earth.” New York Evening Post. D_page 82 Another journal some years ago had the following, under the caption—“A Poor Lot of Kings:” “It is stated with some appearance of truth that King Milan of Servia is insane. The king of Wurttemberg is a partial lunatic. The last king of Bavaria committed suicide while mad, and the present ruler of that country is an idiot. The Czar of Russia fills that office because his brother, the natural heir, was adjudged mentally incapable; and the present Czar is afflicted with melancholia since the time of his coronation, and has called to his aid the mental specialists of Germany and France. The king of Spain is a victim of scrofula and will probably not reach manhood. The Emperor of Germany has an incurable abcess in his ear which will eventually affect his brain. The king of Denmark has bequeathed poisoned blood to half a dozen dynasties. The Sultan of Turkey is afflicted with melancholia. There is not a throne in Europe where the sins of the fathers have not visibly descended upon the children, and in a generation or two more there will be neither Bourbon, Hapsburg, Romanoff nor Guelph to vex and rule the world. Blue blood of this kind will not be at a premium in the 1900’s. It is taking itself out of the problem of the future.” Another writer for the daily press figured up the cost of royalty as follows: “The bargain made with Queen Victoria on her accession gives her £385,000 a year, with the power of granting new pensions to the amount of £1,200 a year, estimated to be equal to an annuity of £19,871. This makes a grand total of £404,871 a year for the Queen alone, of which £60,000 is for her privy purse; that is, simply pocket money. The duchy of Lancaster, which still remains under crown management, also pays £50,000 a year into the privy purse. Thus the Queen has £110,000 a year spending money; for the other expenses of her household are provided for by other items of the Civil List. When a gift of £50 or £100 to charity by the Queen is announced, it must not be supposed to come out of the privy purse, for there is a separate item of £13,200 a year for royal bounty, alms and charity. Among the appointments in the royal D_page 83 household are 20 classed as political, with total salaries of £21,582 a year, the rule being that one man draws the salary and another does the work. The medical department includes 25 persons, from physicians extraordinary to chemists and druggists, all to keep the royal body in good health, while 36 chaplains in ordinary and 9 priests in ordinary minister to the royal soul. The Lord Chamberlain’s department includes a wearisome list of offices, among which, all jumbled up with the examiner of plays, the poet laureate and the surveyor of pictures, are the bargemaster, the keeper of the swans, and the keeper of the jewels in the Tower. The most curious office under the head of the Royal Hunt is that of hereditary grand falconer, held by the duke of St. Albans at a salary of £1,200 a year. Probably the Duke does not know the difference between a falcon and a penquin, and never intends to find out. Since her accession Queen Victoria has abolished many useless offices, thereby making a considerable saving, all of which goes into her capacious privy purse. “Having thus generously provided for the queen, the British nation had to give her husband something. Prince Albert received £30,000 a year by special vote, besides £6,000 a year as field marshal, £2,933 a year as Colonel of two regiments, £1,120 a year as Governor of Windsor Castle, and £1,500 as Ranger of Windsor and the Home Parks. Altogether the Queen’s husband cost the nation £790,000 during his 21 years of married life, and begat a large family to be quartered on the nation. Next comes the Empress Augusta of Germany, who draws £8,000 a year, besides having a dowry of £40,000 and £5,000 for wedding preparations. But this liberal allowance is not enough to pay her fare to England to see her mother, for on every such occasion £40 is paid for her passage. When the Prince of Wales attained his majority he received a little matter of £601,721 as a birthday gift, this being the amount of the accumulated revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall up to that period. Since that time he has received an average of £61,232 a year from the Duchy. The nation has also spent £44,651 on repairs to Marlborough House, the Prince’s town residence, since 1871; pays him £1,350 a year as D_page 84 Colonel of the Tenth Hussars; gave him £23,450 to pay his marriage expenses; allows his wife £10,000 a year, and gave him £60,000 for spending money on his visit to India in 1875. Altogether he has drawn £2,452,200 (over $12,000,000) from John Bull’s pocketbook up to ten years ago and has been drawing regularly ever since. “Now for the younger sons and daughters. Princess Alice received £30,000 on her marriage in 1862, and an annuity of £6,000 until her death in 1878. The Duke of Edinburgh was granted £15,000 a year on coming of age in 1866, and an additional £10,000 a year on his marriage in 1874, besides £6,883 for wedding expenses and repairs to his house. This is what he gets for doing nothing but being a Prince. By work as a captain, and lately as an admiral in the navy, he has earned £15,000. Princess Helena, on her marriage to Prince Christian, of Schleswig-Holstein, in 1866, received a dowry of £30,000 and a grant of £7,000 a year for life, while her husband receives £500 a year as Ranger of Windsor Home Park. The Princess Louisa received the same favors as her sister Helena. The Duke of Connaught began life in 1871 with £15,000 a year from the nation and this was increased to £25,000 on his marriage, in 1879. He now holds the command of the Bombay army, with £6,600 a year and valuable perquisites. The Duke of Albany was granted £15,000 a year in 1874, the amount being increased to £25,000 on his marriage in 1882, and his widow receives £6,000 a year. The ill-fated Duke was the genius of the family; and, if he had been an ordinary citizen with average opportunities, could have earned a comfortable living as a barrister, for he was an orator. The Princess Beatrice on her marriage received the usual dowry of £30,000 and an annuity of £6,000. Thus the nation, from the Queen’s accession up to the end of 1886, had paid £4,766,083 for the luxury of a Prince Consort, five Princesses, and four Princes, leaving out of account special pocket fares, rent-free residences and exemption from taxes. “But this is not all. The nation has not only to support the Queen’s descendants but her cousins and uncles and aunts. I will only record the amounts these royal pensioners have received since 1837. Leopold I., King of the Belgians, D_page 85 simply because he married the Queen’s aunt, received £50,000 a year until his death, in 1865, a total of £1,400,000 during the present reign. However, he had some sense of decency, for when he became the King of the Belgians in 1834, he had his pension paid over to trustees, stipulating only for annuities to his servants and the keeping up of Claremont House, and when he died the whole amount was repaid into the Exchequer. Not so the King of Hanover, an uncle of the Queen. He took all he could get, which, from 1837 to 1851 amounted at £21,000 a year to £294,000. Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV., drew £100,000 a year for 12 years, or £1,200,000 in all. The Queen’s mother the Duchess of Kent, received £30,000 a year from her daughter’s accession to her death, a total of £720,000. The Duke of Sussex, another uncle, received £18,000 a year for six years, a total of £108,000. The Duke of Cambridge, uncle No. 7, absorbed £24,000 a year, or £312,000 in all, while his widow, who still lives, has received £6,000 a year since his death, or £222,000 in all. The Princess Augusta, another aunt, had about £18,000 in all. The landgravine of Hesse, aunt No. 3, secured about £35,000. The Duchess of Gloucester, aunt No. 4, got away with £14,000 a year, for 20 years, or £280,000 in all. The Princess Sophia, still another aunt, received £167,000, and the last aunt, Princess Sophia of Gloucester, niece of George III., received £7,000 a year for 7 years, or £49,000. Then the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Queen’s cousin, was paid £1,788 a year for 23 years of her reign, or £42,124. “The Duke of Cambridge, as Commander-in-chief of the British army, with pensions, salary as Commander-in-chief, colonelcies of several regiments and rangership of several parks, large parts of which he has transformed into private game preserves, has received £625,000 of public money. His sister the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, has received £132,000, and his second sister, “Fat Mary,” Duchess of Teck, has taken £153,000. This makes a grand total of £4,357,124 which the nation has paid for the support of the Queen’s uncles, aunts and cousins during her reign. “Besides the amounts given in the Queen’s Civil List, the original cost and the cost of maintenance of the four royal D_page 86 yachts is included in the navy estimates, although legitimately part of the expense of royalty. The original cost was £275,528, and the total cost of maintenance and pay, of allowances and victualling of the crew for ten years was £346,560, a total of £622,088 for this single item. “To sum up, the Queen’s numerous uncles, aunts and cousins have cost £4,357,124; her husband, her sons and her daughters, £4,766,083; herself and her household, £19,838,679; and her yachts £622,088. This makes a total of £29,583,974 [nearly one hundred and fifty million dollars] which the British nation has spent on monarchy during the present reign. [To the year 1888.] Is the game worth the candle? This is a pretty steep price to pay for stability, for it means that the people are taxed to the limit of their powers to keep in idleness a number of persons who would do more good to the country if they were earning an honest living.” The spectacular coronation of the Czar of Russia was a marked illustration of royal extravagance, designed, as are all the flaunting plumes of royalty, to impress the masses of the people with the idea that their rulers are so far above them in glory and dignity as to be worthy of their worship as superior beings, and their most abject and servile obedience. It is said that the great display of royalty on this occasion cost $25,000,000. Upon this extravagance, so in contrast with the wretched conditions of its peasant millions, with whose miseries the whole world became so well acquainted during the famine of 1893, we extract from the comments of an English journal, The Spectator, as follows: “It is difficult to study the accounts of the preparations for the Russian coronation, which read as if they ought to be printed in gold upon purple silk, without a sensation of disgust, more especially if we read at the same time the descriptions of the massacres of Armenians whom the Russians have refused to protect, although they had the power. We can, with an effort, call up the marvelous scene presented in Moscow, with its Asiatic architecture and gleaming D_page 87 cupolas, its streets full of gorgeous European uniforms and more gorgeous Asiatic dresses, white Princes in red, yellow Princes in blue, brown Princes in cloth of gold, the rulers of tribes from the far East, the Dictator of China, and the brown Japanese General before whom that Dictator has fallen prone, side by side with members of all reigning Houses in Europe, and representatives of all known Churches except the Mormon, of all the peoples who obey the Czar—there are, we believe, eighty of them—and of every army in the West, all moving amidst regiments endless in number and varieties of uniform, and through millions of humble folk—half Asiatic, half European—filled with excitement and with devotion to their earthly lord. We can anticipate the roar of the endless crowds, the choruses of the multitudinous monks, the salvoes of artillery, which are repeated from station to station till throughout the whole north of the world, from Riga to Vladivostock, all men hear at the same moment of time that the Czar has placed the crown upon his head. The Englishman studies it all as he would study a poem by Moore, and finds it at once gorgeous and sickly. Is not this too grandiose for grandeur? Is it not rather of the opera than of life? Is there not something like guilt, in an Empire like Russia, with its millions upon millions of suffering people, in the gigantic expenditure which produces these purple effects? Five millions sterling for a ceremonial! Is there a principle upon which an expenditure like that can even be plausibly justified? Is it not the waste of a Belshazzar, the display of an almost insane pride, a pouring out of treasure as Oriental kings sometimes pour it out, solely to excite an emotion of glory in one oversated mind? Nothing could induce an Englishman to vote such a sum for such an object, and England could spare the money at least ten times as readily as Russia. “Yet it may be feared that those who rule Russia are wise in their generation, and that this reckless outlay of energy and treasure secures a result which, from their point of view, is an adequate return. The object is to deepen the Russian impression that the position of the Czar is in some way supra-natural, that his resources are as limitless as his power, that he stands in some special relation to the Divine, D_page 88 that his coronation is a consecration so solemn and with such meaning for mankind that no external display to make it visible can be excessive, that mankind may be summoned to gaze without derogation, that the momentary hush of peace which has been so carefully spread throughout the Northern world is caused not by order but by expectation of an adequate event. And the ruling Russians believe that the result is attained, and that the impression of the coronation equals throughout the Empire the impression of a victory which would cost as much in money and much more in tears. They repeat the ceremonial on every devolution of the throne, with an ever-increasing splendor and vastness of design, corresponding to the increase of Russian position, marked just now, as they think, by the sullen retrogression of Japan, by the submissiveness of China and by the crawling servility of the ruler of Constantinople. They even believe that the coronation increases their master’s prestige in Europe, that the grandeur of his Empire, the multitude of his soldiers, his possession of all the resources of civilization as well as of all the resources of a barbaric Power, is borne more closely home to the collective mind of the West, and increases the dislike which is there to face the great Northern Power. In Berlin, there is, they think, a deeper shiver at the thought of invasion, in Paris more exultation as men remember the Alliance, in London a longer pause as her statesmen meditate, as they are always meditating, how next the march of the glacier may be stayed or turned aside. Can any one assert with confidence that they are wholly wrong, or that for a year the diplomacy of Russia will not be bolder in consequence of the national festival, the resistance of those who resist more timid because they have seen, at least with their mental eyes, a scene which might perhaps, if brevity were sought, be best described as the review of an Empire held within the walls of its capital, or the march past of Northern Europe and Asia in honor of its Commander-in-Chief? “It may be misleading, but of this we feel assured, that scenes like that presented at this coronation form one of the risks of the world. They must tend to demoralize its most D_page 89 powerful man. Of the present Czar no one knows anything, except, says one who was thrown into close contact with him, that he is ‘a man of deep emotional feeling;’ but he must be more than the ordinary mass, if he, a descendant of Alexander I who signed the Treaty of Tilsit, can feel himself for days the center of that coronation scene, can, in fact, be worshiped as if he reigned in Nineveh, without dreaming dreams; and king’s dreams are usually of dominion. There is an intoxication of rank, we take it, as well as an intoxication of power, and the man on whom every eye is fixed, and before whom all princes seem small, must be of temperate mind indeed if he does not at moments swell with the conviction that he is first among mankind. The rulers of Russia may yet find that, though in raising their Czars so high they have strengthened loyalty and deepened obedience, they have dissolved the power of self-restraint which is the necessary defense of the mind.” But the fact that these rulers of so-called Christian Kingdoms are as a whole devoid of true Christian sentiments are as a whole devoid of true Christian sentiments and lacking in even human sympathy is abundantly proved by the fact that, while wealth is squandered like water in the support of royalty and its vain pomp and show, and while millions of soldiers and sailors, and a most marvelous military armament are at their command, they heard unmoved the cries of the poor Armenian Christians, whom the Turks were torturing and killing by the tens of thousands. The wonderful armies evidently are not organized for humanity’s sake, but for the merely selfish purposes of the political and financial rulers of the world; viz., to grasp territory, to protect interests of bondholders, and to fly at each other’s throats, inflamed with murderous spite, whenever a good opportunity is seen to enlarge their empires or to increase their wealth. In marked contrast with this royal extravagance which prevails, to some extent in every country where a royal family is maintained, is The Enormous Indebtedness of European Countries. D_page 90 “The Economiste Francais published an elaborate article, by M. Rene Stourm, on the Public Debt of France. The most usual estimate of the capital of the debt is said to be $6,400,000,000. The most moderate estimates place it a few millions lower. M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu figures it at $6,343,573,630. The result of M. Stourm’s computation is a total of $5,900,800,000 with the qualification, however, that he has omitted $432,000,000 of life annuities, which other economists have treated as part of the capital of the debt. The annual charge for interest and sinking fund, on the entire debt, including the life annuities, is $258,167,083. Of the funded debt $2,900,000,000 are perpetual 3 per cents, $1,357,600,000 perpetual four and a half per cents, and $967,906,200 redeemable bonds of various descriptions. Annuities to divers companies and corporations of $477,400,000, and $200,000,000 of floating debt, make up the balance of M. Stourm’s total. This is by far the heaviest burden borne by any nation on the globe. The nearest approach to it is the debt of Russia, which is stated at $3,605,600,000. England is next, with $3,565,800,000, and Italy next, with $2,226,200,000. The debt of Austria is $1,857,600,000, and of Hungary $635,600,000. Spain owes $1,208,400,000, and Prussia $962,800,000. These are the figures of M. Stourm. None of these nations, excepting England and Prussia, raise sufficient revenue to guarantee a permanent equilibrium of the budget, but France is the most heavily burdened of them all, and the increase of her debt has been the most rapid in the recent past and is the most threatening of the future. “In conclusion M. Stourm says: ‘We refrain from dwelling upon the afflicting reflections which the result of our labor awakens. Under whatever aspect we regard these 29 1/2 milliards, whether in comparison with the debts of other countries or with our own debt of ten or twenty years ago, they appear like a summit of unknown height, surpassing the limit which any people of the world, at any epoch, have supposed attainable. The Eiffel Tower will be their veritable counterpart; we dominate our neighbors’ and our history with the height of our debt,...in the presence of which it is time that our country felt patriotic fright.’” D_page 91 The London Telegraph once published the following resume of the national financial outlook: “Impecuniosity hangs like a dark and almost universal cloud over the nations of Europe. Times are very bad for the Powers all round, but worst of all for the small ones. There is hardly a nation on the Continent whose balance-sheet for the departed year does not present a gloomy outlook; while many of them are mere confessions of bankruptcy. Careful reports upon the financial conditions of the various States exhibit a struggle in the several exchequers to make two ends meet which has never been so general. The state of things is indeed almost world-wide; for, if we look outside our own Continent, the United States on one hand, and India and Japan, with their neighbors, on the other, have felt the prevalent pinch... “The Great Republic is too vast and resourceful to die of her financial maladies; though even she is very sick. Great Britain, too, has a deficit to face in the coming Budget, and has sustained costly, perhaps irreparable, losses by the mad business of the coal strike. France, like ourselves and America, is one of the countries which cannot well be imagined insolvent, so rich is her soil and so industrious are her people. Her revenue, however, manifests frequent deficits; her national debt has assumed stupendous proportions, and the burden of her Army and Navy well-nigh crushes the industry of the land. Germany must also be written in the category of Powers too solid and too strong to suffer more than temporary eclipse. Yet during the past year it is computed that she has lost £25,000,000 sterling, which represents about half the national savings. Much of this loss has been due to German investments in the stocks of Portugal, Greece, South America, Mexico, Italy and Servia; while Germany has also sharply felt the confusion in the silver market. The burden of her armed peace weighs upon her people with a crushing load. Among the Powers which we are grouping together as naturally solvent, it is striking to find that Austria-Hungary has the best and happiest account to give... “When we turn aside from this great group and cast our eyes on Italy, there is an example of a ‘Great Power’ well-nigh D_page 92 beggared by her greatness. Year by year her revenue drops and her expenditures increase. Six years ago the value of Italy’s external commerce was 2,600,000,000 francs; now it has fallen to 2,100,000,000. She must pay £30,000,000 sterling as interest on her public debt, besides a premium for the gold necessary. Her securities are a drug in the market; her prodigious issue of bank notes has put silver and gold at fancy prices. Her population is plunged in a state of poverty and helplessness almost unimaginable here, and when her new Ministers invent fresh taxes sanguinary riots break out. “As for Russia, her financial statements are shrouded in such mystery that none can speak of them with confidence; but there is little reason to doubt that only the bigness of the Czar’s empire keeps it from becoming bankrupt. The population has been squeezed until almost the last drop of the life-blood of industry is extracted. The most reckless and remorseless Financial Minister scarcely dares to give the screw of taxation another half-turn. “A moderate and accurate native authority writes about the situation in Russia in the following words: “‘Every copeck which the peasant contrives to earn is spent, not in putting his affairs in order, but in paying up arrears in taxes...The money paid by the peasant population in the guise of taxes amounts to from two-thirds to three-fourths of the gross income of the land, including their own extra work as farm laborers.’ The apparent good credit of the government is sustained by artificial means. Close observers look for a crash alike in the social and financial arches of the empire. Here, too, the stupendous incubus of the armed peace of Europe helps largely to paralyze commerce and agriculture. The example of Portugal lies outside our purview; for, though the once famous kingdom if a defaulter, her unfortunate position is certainly not due to military ambition or to feverish expenditures. Greece, however, although insignificant among the Powers with her population of two millions, affords a glaring instance of the ruin to which financial extravagance and inflated designs will bring a nation. The ‘great idea’ has been the curse of little Greece, and we have recently seen her driven to shirk the load of her public debt by an act of absolute D_page 93 dishonesty, only partially suspended in face of the protests of Europe. The money wasted on her ‘Army and Navy’ might as well have been thrown into the sea. Politics have become with her a disease, infecting her best and most capable public men. With a common people too educated to work; university students more plentiful than bricklayers; public debts and private debts which nobody ever means to pay; a sham Army and Navy, eating up funds; dishonesty made a principle in politics; and secret plans which must either mean more loans or a corrupt and perilous bargain with Russia—these things characterize contemporary Greece. “Looking the Continent all round, therefore, it cannot be denied that the state of things as regards the welfare of the people and the national balance-sheets is sorely unsatisfactory. Of course one chief and obvious reason for this is that armed peace which weighs upon Europe like a nightmare, and has turned the whole Continent into a standing camp. Look at Germany alone! That serious and sober Empire! The Army Budget rose there from £17,500,000 sterling in 1880 to £28,500,000 in 1893. The increase under the new Army Defense Act adds £3,000,000 sterling a year to the colossal mass of Germany’s defensive armor. “France has strained her strength to the same point of proximate collapse to match her mighty rival. It is needless to point out the terrible part which these war insurances bear in the present popular distress of Europe. Not merely do they abstract from profits and earnings the vast sums which buy powder and shot and build barracks, but they take from the ranks of industry at the commencement of their manly force millions of young workmen, who are also lost for the same periods to the family and the reinforcement of populations. The world has not yet invented a better clearing-house for the international cheques than the ghastly and costly Temple of war.” But notwithstanding the heavy indebtedness and financial embarrassment of the nations, it is estimated by able statisticians that the actual cost to Europe of the various army and navy budgets, the maintenance of garrisons and the loss of industrial labor by the withdrawal of men from D_page 94 productive industry, may be reasonably taken as $1,500,000,000 per annum, to say nothing of the immense loss of life, which in twenty-five years of the past century (from 1855 to 1880) is stated at 2,188,000, and that amidst horrors which beggar description. Mr. Charles Dickens has very truthfully observed that: “We talk exultantly, and with a certain fire, of ‘a magnificent charge!’ of ‘a splendid charge!’ yet very few will think of the hideous particulars these two airy words stand for. The ‘a splendid charge’ is a headlong rush of men on strong horses, urged to their fullest speed, riding down and overwhelming an opposing mass of men on foot. The reader’s mind goes no further; being content with the information that the enemy’s line was ‘broken’ and ‘gave way.’ It does not fill in the picture. When the ‘splendid charge’ has done its work and passed by, there will be found a sight very much like the scene of a frightful railway accident. There will be the full complement of backs broken in two, of arms twisted wholly off, of men impaled upon their own bayonets, of legs smashed up like bits of firewood, of heads sliced open like apples, of other heads crunched into soft jelly by iron hoofs of horses, of faces trampled out of all likeness to anything human. That is what skulks behind a ‘splendid charge.’ This is what follows, as a matter of course, when ‘our fellows rode at them in style,’ and ‘cut them up famously.’” “Picture to yourselves,” says another writer, “the toiling millions over the whole face of Europe, swarming forth day by day to their labor, working ceaselessly from early morn to dewy eve, in the cultivation of the soil, in the production of fabrics, in the exchange of commodities, in mines, factories, forges, docks, workshops, warehouses; on railways, rivers, lakes, oceans; penetrating the bowels of the earth, subduing the stubbornness of brute matter, mastering the elements of nature, and making them subservient to human convenience and weal, and creating by all this a mass of wealth which might carry abundance and comfort to every one of their homes. And then imagine the hand of power coming in and every year sweeping some six hundred D_page 95 millions of the money so laboriously earned into the abyss of military expenditure.” The following from the Harrisburg Telegram is also to the point: “It costs the ‘Christian’ nations of Europe something to illustrate their notion of ‘peace on earth and good will to men.’ That is, it costs them something to keep themselves all ready to blow one another into small fragments. Statistics published in Berlin show the amount of military expenditures of the great powers during the three years 1888, 1889, 1890. The following expenditures in round figures are given: France, $1,270,000,000; Russia, $813,000,000; Great Britain, $613,000,000; Germany, $607,000,000; Austria-Hungary, $338,000,000; Italy, $313,500,000. These six powers have expended altogether $3,954,500,000 for military purposes in three years, or at the rate of more than $1,318,100,000 a year. The total for the three years considerably exceeds the national debt of Great Britain, and is nearly large enough to pay the interest-bearing debt of the United States three times over. The corresponding expenditure in the United States has been about $145,000,000, exclusive of pensions. If we should add these our total expenditure would be swelled to about $390,000,000.” “According to the estimates of French and German statisticians, there have perished in the wars of the last thirty years 2,500,000 men, while there has been expended to carry on those wars no less than $13,000,000,000. Dr. Engel, a German statistician, gives the following as the approximate cost of the principal wars of the last thirty years: Crimean war, $2,000,000,000; Italian war of 1859, $300,000,000; Prusso-Danish war of 1864, $35,000,000; War of the Rebellion (North), $5,100,000,000; South, $2,300,000,000; Prusso-Austrian war of 1866, $330,600,000; Franco-German war of 1870, $2,600,000,000; Russo-Turkish war, $125,000,000; South African wars, $8,770,000; African war, $13,250,000; Servo-Bulgarian war, $176,000,000. “All these wars were murderous in the extreme. The Crimean war, in which few battles were fought, cost 750,000 D_page 96 lives, only 50,000 less than were killed or died of their wounds North and South during the war of the Rebellion. The Mexican and Chinese expeditions cost $200,000,000, and 85,000 lives. There were 250,000 killed and mortally wounded during the Russo-Turkish war, and 45,000 each in the Italian war of 1859, and the war between Prussia and Austria.” In a letter to Deputy Passy of Paris, the late Hon. John Bright, member of the English Parliament, said: “At present all European resources are swallowed up in military exigencies. The people’s interests are sacrificed to the most miserable and culpable fantasies of foreign politics. The real interests of the masses are trodden under foot in deference to false notions of glory and national honor. I cannot help thinking that Europe is marching toward some great catastrophe of crushing weight. The military system cannot indefinitely be supported with patience, and the populations, driven to despair, may possibly before long sweep away the royalties and pretended statesmen who govern in their names.” Thus the judgment of the civil powers is going against them. Not only is the press thus outspoken, but the people everywhere are loudly talking and clamoring against the powers that be. The unrest is universal, and is becoming more and more dangerous every year. The World’s Arraignment
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