THE FRESH EXPENDiT VILE ON THE CONTINENT.
IT is of very little use to criticise the new demands of the Continental Governments for money to be spent on military preparations. Those Governments understand war if they understand nothing else, and their subjects realise to themselves the horrors of invasion in a way which, until the Channel Tunnel is completed, Englishmen will never do. The Governments, therefore, propose, and the subjects accept, increases of expenditure which bewilder English critics, just as men in private life propose and endure outlays, doctors' and lawyers' bills for example, which may seem unendurable, but must, nevertheless, be endured. It is difficult all the same, though we admit the inutility df the inquiry, to refrain from consider- ing as a question of high intellectual interest whether there is any limit to this perpetual waste. Last year we were told that a terminal point had been reached, that Germany could not use more men, that Austria had brought her Army as near perfection as her composite character would allow, that King Humbert had overcome that difficulty of rapid mobilisation which was the great defect in the military preparedness of Italy. People did not quite believe the story, but still they felt relieved, and said to each other that after all there must be an end somewhere, and that perhaps the end was in view. They have been disappointed again. The German Minister of War has asked the German Parliament for sums involving an increase of three millions sterling a year to the fixed expenditure, saying that, though men and materiel are pretty right—not quite, for France, plus Russia, controls armies larger by 600,000 men than the League of Peace does—he must pay for new artillery, and must build one or two " strategic railways," a kind of expenditure to which, with a long open frontier, there is no kind of visible termination. When the railways are built they must be provided with running material, and this not on an ordinary scale, but on what we may call the " excursion-day " scale, the Staff idea—quite a just idea— being that safety may depend on their ability to move 100,000 men all at once at a few hours' notice. Under those circumstances, the Minister of War peremptorily refuses to pledge himself not to adk for more money still, and tells the Deputies grimly that his expenditure does not really depend on him or them either, but must be governed by the preparations that are made by enemies over whom Germany has no control. Then the Austrian Government follows suit. That Government is perfectly sincere in its apologies and its vexation. Its Ministers are harassed to death by the financial strain, which not only in- creases discontent, and lends edge to the friction always existing among the divisions of the Monarchy, but is a constant restraint upon the good-tempered, easy-going variety of absolutism which in their hearts is the desire of all Austrian officials, from the Emperor downwards. If they could lower taxation, and snub financiers, and tell their Diets to be at peace, for Government had nothing to ask, they would be much happier men ; but the necessity strikes them as inexorable. So the Emperor hints that he must keep step with his allies, and the War Minister tells the Delegations this and that, half of it unintelligible to any but traind•experts, and at last a respected Delegate rises to ask a question,—Is it true or is it not that, as a result of all that has been said, the strictly military permanent expenditure will be increased by two millions sterling a year ? The Minister of War sadly assents, and for the moment "the incident ends." The people, however, have grown excited, both in Germany and Hungary ; the truce between them and their Govern- ments has been broken up, and though the Ministries will get the money—for how can you refuse payment to men who are damping the gunpowder under your house ?—the Courts and their people are again divided by bitter differences of opinion.
We do not wonder, for the pressure must be terrible. We in England hardly feel taxation now, but all over Central Europe it is positively and directly lowering the sum of human happiness. It is not only that the middle class hardly knows how to meet the direct demands made on it,—demands exacted with scientific strictness, but that in Austria at least the paper currency is disturbed, and that in both countries the prices of necessaries rise, the financiers still meeting the new outlays by taxes on general consumption, and this in countries where, speaking broadly, unskilled labour has to put up with a wage of eighteenpence a day. As regards the lowest classes, there is no margin to draw on, yet they are asked, like the others, to contribute through the price of necessaries of life. They may well strike for wages, sure that they can be no worse off, or turn for relief to the dreamers, who tell them that if society were only destroyed, a millennium of limitless bread and beer would arise upon its ruins. They suffer with every new proposal from the War Offices, and the Governments know they do, yet they believe there is no help.
Is there any ? To all appearance there is none, for no permanent relief can come except from some change either in the power or the willingness of France and Russia to go to war whenever they see a favourable opportunity or are irritated out of their prudence ; and of that change there is no sign. But if the pressure continues, we venture to predict that one of three consequences will happen. Either the Parliaments will grow restless, and insist on considering part of the military expenditure actual war expenditure, and therefore meeting it by war loans ; or there will be an enormous development of democratic feeling of the revolutionary kind ; or the nations, wearied with their burdens, will force on the great war rather than bear the exhausting preparations any longer. The first partial solution is improbable, because the Governments think that, if they borrow in peace-time, the Treasuries may run dry in war, which would be as dangerous as the magazines running dry ; and because the great financiers, who want bonds to rise, will oppose such a reckless course ; but of the remaining two, one is nearly inevitable Many keen observers believe that the third will be the one adopted, they imagining that a harassed people will prefer a short and severe period of danger to a long period of a kind of workhouse life ; but that view is probably incorrect. It would be certainly true if the nations were in the old position, and could order out professional armies to fight their enemies, and so bring matters to a head ; but that is no longer the case. If a Continental nation now wishes to fight it must not only go itself—which is a great check— but it knows more or less accurately the kind of horror it is going into. All men have some tincture of soldiership, some interest in warlike ideas, and there is probably not a household between the Baltic and the Adriatic, where Count von Moltke's opinion that the next war will be a long one has not made its deep impression. The nations know what three years of campaigning would mean for them, and, unless attacked, they would rather munch crusts till their teeth fail them. No one, so far as we know, can point to one obviously popular cry for war which has arisen anywhere on the Continent since 1871. Even the French have not raised one ; and the French are so discontented with their situa- tion, so ready to be angry, for cause or for none, that it is hardly possible even for diplomatists, in doing business with them, to keep their tempers. It is possible that such a popular cry may arise somewhere, especially in Hungary, where general discontent would threaten the ascendency of the ruling race as nothing else could ; but it is more probable that, while they can, all the nations will wait, even though they have to sleep in armour and on pallets of straw. But in that case we shall see the temper of the populace- gradually grow hot, and that current of feeling which has this year produced the universal proclivity towards strikes, turn itself also against the Governments,—which, it will be said, by their mismanagement have allowed the pres- sure to grow so severe. Those Governments, although they are so well obeyed, are not sincerely liked, and any popular movement against them, owing its real origin to the penury of large classes, would take unusually bitter forms. What the concrete " reform " demanded would be it is difficult to forecast—the present formula is, " no more money unless service is shortened "—but that the cry, whatever it is, will be the loudest of our generation we have no doubt whatever. Bread riots are always fierce, and it is bread which these never-ending military expenses are slowly bringing into question. We believe the statesmen of the Continent see this, and that the extraordinary panic which preceded May 1st, and which everywhere affected only the class of experienced men who are usually exempt, was mainly due to a restless doubt whether the present state of affairs can be much longer endured.
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