Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/100

 are industriously entering upon the same competition and spending no small amounts thereby. A portion of the military expenses are borne by the various cantons, but in spite of this the expenditures of the central government are growing by leaps and bounds, as is shown by the following table:

The appropriations for the military are growing rapidly, as is also the income from taxes. They are as follows:

If we omit the income and expenditures for the postal and telegraph systems, that nearly cancel each other, we find that in 1907 the income was eighty-three million francs, of which seventy-three million were raised from taxation. The expenses amounted to eighty million francs, of which forty-two million were for the military and six million for interest on the public debt.

So we see that even in Switzerland militarism is swallowing up the lion's share of the national income, and that its demands are rapidly growing.

No one would be so naive as to assert that we can pass imperceptibly and without a battle from the military state and absolutism into democracy, and out of the conquering imperialism into the union of free peoples by a gradual "growing into." The whole idea of "growing into" can only arise during a time when it is the common belief that all further evolution will take place exclusively on the economic field, without any change whatever being required in the relation of political powers and