Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/736

Rh 706 E U 11 P E enlistment. According to the Swiss constitution, there can be no standing army within the federal territory. The following table, quoted by Kolb from a paper by Freiherr von Fircks in the Journal of the Prussian statistical bureau, gives an estimate of the military forces of the principal states in 1859 and 1874 : 18, &amp;gt;9. 18 4. Total Army. Available for Offence. Total Army. Available for Offence. Germany 836,800 483,700 1,261,160 710,130 Austria- Hungary .... Russia (European).... France 634,400 1,134,200 640,500 443,800 604,100 438,000 856,980 1,401,510 977,600 452,450 665,890 525,700 Italy 317,650 156,450 605,200 322,000 80,250 53,800 93,590 59,140 Netherlands 58,550 42,200 64,320 32,430 Great Britain 245,800 77,300 478,820 71,860 57,550 38,450 48,700 30,500 Sweden and Norway. 134,900 46,300 204,510 54,910 Total 4,230,550 2,459,750 6,110,690 3,012,560 Thus the only nation which had decreased its force during that period was Denmark; France, instead of having one soldier to every 58 of the population, had one to every 37; Great Britain, instead of one to 119, had one to 71. Since 1874 matters have not greatly changed. According to the Almanac de Gotha for 1878, the several states rank as follows, taken in the order of the strength of their forces in time of peace: Russia 787,998 France 494,105 Germany 418,821 Austria-Hungary 296,218 Great Britain 233,872 Italy 220,690 Turkey 157,667 Switzerland 106,102 Spain 100,000 Netherlands 52,930 Belgium 45,970 Sweden 36,495 Denmark 35,699 Portugal 34,203 Montenegro 30, 000 Roumania 17,169 Norway 12,755 Greece 12,188 Servia 4,222 Luxembourg 634 The total amounts to upwards of 3,000,000, or very nearly the population of Scotland or of the largest city in the world : in other words it forms one per cent, of the whole population of the Continent, more than one in fifty of the male population, or probably about one in fifteen of the adult male population. The expense incurred is enormous, the average sum paid by each individual for the defence of his country being, according to the Almanac de Gotha : Francs. 1. France 24 86 2. England 21 &quot;45 3. Germany lO lO 4. Spain 8 81 5. Italy 8-63 6. Belgium 8 23 7. Portugal 7 58 8. Austria- Hungary 7 35 9. Russia 7&quot;26 10. Sweden... .. 6 &quot;93 Francs. 11. Denmark 6 58 12. Greece 5 81 13. Norway 5 67 14. Switzerland 4 &quot;51 15. Turkey 3 88 16. Roumania 3 65 17. Servia 3 21 18. Luxembourg 2 46 19. Montenegro 2 14 20. Netherlands 2 &quot;06 The maritime nations, almost without exception, maintain a considerable navy for warlike purposes ; and the greater powers have lavished their wealth on experiment after ex periment in the endless task of mutual competition for the most destructive and indestructible fleet. In 1877-78 Britain had 58 ironclads (of which 47 are described as efficient), France 58, Germany 20, Russia 29, Austria- Hungary 14, Italy 16, Turkey 15 large and 18 small, Spain 10, and the Netherlands 17. The difference of size anc structure of the individual vessels makes the fleets of the several countries practically incommensurable in a genera survey; and without the actual test of conflict it would be hard to say which of the approximately equal equipments is the most powerful. An American official 1 investigator King, The, War /Ships of Europe. n 1877 decided in favour of Britain, which not only nanufactures her own armoured ships, but has constructed large number of vessels for Russia, Turkey, Spain, Hoi- and, Italy. Denmark, Greece, and Portugal. A most important result of the military expenses of the &amp;gt; ifferent countries has been the extraordinary development d )f national debts. In 1848 the total for all the European tates was about 1,700,000,000 ; by 1873 it had increased o 4,680,000,000, or at the rate of 119,000,000 annually. ach successive war the Crimean, the French-Austrian, he Prussian-Austrian, and the French-German has added o the load. Mr Robert Dudley Baxter, in a paper in the Journal of the Statistical Society, 1875, arranged the ountries in groups according to the rate of interest they -&amp;gt;aid on the market price. The states of low interest, pay- ng from 3 to 4 per cent., were the United Kingdom, Den mark, Holland, Belgium, and Germany; the states of moderate interest, 5 to 6| per cent., Russia and France ; the states of high interest, 6J- to 10 per cent., Portugal, -lungary and Austria, Italy, and Turkey; while Spain, Daying upwards of 16 per cent., ranked as a state of exces sive interest. According to a table furnished by Dr Kolb, if the several national debts were equally distributed over would have to pay about 27, every inhabitant of France about 25, 4s., of Great Britain 24, 15s., of Spain 22, 10s., of the Netherlands 18, 18s., of Italy 16, 16s., of Turkey 13, of Austria-Hungary 10, of Belgium 5, 17s., and of Russia 5, 5s. The country which ranks Lowest is Switzerland, which has no standing army, the average for every man being there only about 8s. or 9. Were it not for the enormous development of European ommerce such a state of matters could not be supported, and even as it is several countries have been practically, if not formally, bankrupt during the present ceiitury. The following table gives the annual revenues of the different countries : Income. F.xpendituve. Franc i- (1877) 106,885,620 106,691,868 Russia (1877) 81,539,714 81,252,857 Great Britain (1877) 78,565,000 78,125,000 Italv (1877) 59,564,396 56,915.096 ustria (1877) 37,663,781 40,556,947 Prussia (1878) 32,581,920 32,581,920 Spain (1877) 29,433,000 29,430,000 Hungary (1877) 23,341,042 21,447,457 Belgium (1877) 10,161,830 9,857,700 Netherlands (1876) 8,642,556 9,539,139 Portugal (1877) 5,346,661 5,510,200 Sweden (1878) 4,782,778 4,782,778 Roumania (1876) 3,915,776 3,915,776 Denmark (1877 8) 2,734,189 2,239,443 Norway (1877-8) 2,235,000 2,235,000 Switzerland (1876) 1,659.496 1,704,880 Greece (1877) 1,401,678 1,466,760 The commerce of Europe may be said to have had its beginning when the people of the early stone period bartered on from horde to horde the flint or jade best fitted for their weapons, and there is reason to believe that far back iu prehistoric times the amber of the Baltic found its way across the Alps to add a new element to Italian decoration. It was not till the Roman period, however, that the great lines of traffic were distinctly laid ; Rome was the first European city whose necessities and desires formed as it were a great centre of combustion requiring a continual current from all directions to feed the ever-brightening flame. Since the 10th century, when the northern nations had finally settled in their present seats, the commercial activity of the continent has increased from generation to generation, and in none has it made a greater advance than in the present. Europe has now a hundred Romes; and
 * he respective populations every inhabitant of Portugal