Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/178

166 in the wealth destroyed. How clear, then, is the source of commercial distress! The machinery of war, which can no longer be made profitable, exhausts, in its unnecessary perpetuation, what ought to be the surplus of production. It has become a system of disbursements without counterbalancing receipts, producing scarcity and want.

With what state of facts could our theory more exactly correspond? Is not the condition one where surviving "militancy" is impeding that "industrial" growth in which alone civilized prosperity can be found? Then the only remedy for European poverty and distress is plain. The disappearance of autocratic governments, the disbandment of armies, the repeal of artificial restrictions on trade imposed to raise the revenues of war; in a word, the removal of all that has its roots in "militancy." Slowly, indeed, will this great, far-reaching change come about, but with it alone can the growth of what we call prosperity proceed.

Leaving warlike Europe, and turning home to our own great, peaceful, and hard-working commonwealth, it would seem that "industrialism" being so manifestly the type of American civilization, the existence of commercial depression with us affords evidences fatal to the theory we have been elaborating. How, if this theory be sound, can a land of peace and free government ever be the scene of "hard times"?

First, as a partial substantiation of our position, we would point to the familiar fact that the accompaniment of the predominating "industrialism" of the United States has been a growth of wealth and prosperity far exceeding in rapidity that of any other historic people. All that remains for us to show, therefore, is that the interruptions to this prosperity are to be traced to militant tendencies.

There are two great issues before the American people to-day, in the settlement of which, all are agreed, the national welfare is deeply involved. These are the tariff and the currency issues. Let us inquire into their nature. Institutions, like men, may largely be judged by their genealogy; so let us ask whence came this system of enormous taxes upon imports, the wisdom of which men view so differently. We find it had its birth in the necessities of war. True, the representatives of a number of wealthy industries, which have fattened at the public expense under this artificial barrier to competition, would have us believe that the function of a tariff is to start a nation into industrial activity—the extraordinary implication being that industrial activity would not arise independently of such a device; but of the almost impassable barrier, which confines our commerce to-day, war alone was the creator. To the philosophic observer, then.