Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/34

 nations. The Germans decided that a repeating rifle could be used with advantage in infantry tactics; the French must scrap from five to ten million single-shot rifles and replace them by repeaters. When the British proved that a battleship of unprecedented size entirely armed with big guns could thrash any small battleship armed with guns of mixed calibres, all existing battleships were headed toward the junk-yard, and the rival nations must build dreadnoughts. When France worked out a field-gun unprecedented for accuracy and rapidity of fire, thousands of German field-guns must go to the melting-pot or to museums, to be replaced by imitations of the French “soixante-quinze.” And the expense of these improvements increased almost in arithmetical ratio. A repeating rifle, with its complicated mechanism, cost much more than a smooth bore. “First-line” ships for modern navies cost in the seventies one or two million dollars; a crack dreadnought costs now a matter of forty or fifty million dollars. The burden of taxation weighed heavier and ever heavier on the common man and woman of Europe. There were signs just before the Great War that the race of armament was slowing up. Nations seemed to hesitate about adopting obvious but costly improvements. The true cause back of this, doubtless, was that taxation was reaching the “point of saturation”—for peace times at least. Agitation against military service began to make itself heard. It took two years from the