Of Charges, Military and Naval.

When a nation has made any considerable progress in commerce, manufacture, and the arts, and its products have, consequently, become various and abundant, it would be an immense inconvenience, if every citizen were liable to be dragged from a productive employment, which has become necessary to society, for the purposes of national defence. The cultivator of the soil works no longer for the sustenance of himself and family only, but also for that of many other families, who are either owners of the soil, and share in its produce, or traders and manufacturers, that supply him with articles he cannot do without. He must, therefore, cultivate a larger extent of surface, must vary his tillage, keep a larger stock of cattle, and follow a complex mode of cultivation that will fully occupy his leisure between seed-time and harvest.

Still less can the trader and manufacturer afford thus to sacrifice time and talents, whereof the constant occupation, except during the intervals of rest, is necessary to the production, from which they are to derive their subsistence.

The owners of land let out to farm may, undoubtedly, serve as soldiers without pay; as, indeed, the nobility and gentry do, in some measure, in monarchical states; but they are, for the most part, so much accustomed to the sweets of social existence, so little goaded by necessity towards the conception and achievement of great enterprises, and feel so little of the enthusiasm of emulation and esprit de corps, that they commonly prefer a pecuniary sacrifice to that of comfort, and possibly of life. And these motives operate equally with the owners of capital.

All these reasons have led individuals, in most modern states, to consent to a taxation, that may enable the monarch or the republic to defend the country against external violence with a hired and professional soldiery, who are, however, too apt to become the tools of their leader's ambition or tyranny.

When war has become a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour. Every branch of human science is pressed into its service. Distinction or excellence, whether in the capacity of general, engineer, subaltern, or even private soldier, can not be obtained without long training, perhaps, and constant practice. The nation, which should act upon a different principle, would lie under the disadvantage of opposing the imperfection, to the perfection, of art. Thus, excepting the cases, in which the enthusiasm of a whole nation has been roused to action, the advantage has uniformly been on the side of a disciplined and professional soldiery. The Turks, although professing the utmost contempt for the arts of their Christian neighbours, are compelled by the dread of extermination, to be their scholars in the art of war. The European powers were all forced to adopt the military tactics of the Prussians; and, when the violent agitation of the French revolution pressed every resource of science to the aid of the armies of the republic, the enemies of France were obliged to follow the example.

This extensive application of science, and adaptation of fresh means and more ample resources to military purposes, have made war far more expensive now than in former times. It is necessary now-a-days, to provide an army beforehand, with supplies of arms, ammunition, magazines of provision, ordnance, &c., equal to the consumption of one campaign at the least. The invention of gunpowder has introduced the use of weapons more complex and expensive, and very chargeable in the transport, especially the field and battering trains. Moreover, the wonderful improvement of naval tactics, the variety of vessels of every class and construction, all requiring the utmost exertion of human genius and industry; the yards, docks, machinery, store-houses, &c. have entailed upon nations addicted to war almost as heavy an expense in peace, as in times of actual hostility; and obliged them not only to expend a great portion of their income, but to vest a great amount of capital likewise in military establishments. In addition to which, it is to be observed, that the modern colonial system, that is to say, the system of retaining the sovereignty of towns and provinces in distant parts of the world, has made the European states open to attack and aggression in the most remote quarters of the globe, and the whole world the theatre of warfare, when any of the leading powers are the belligerents.

Wealth has, consequently, become as indispensable as valour to the prosecution of modern warfare; and a poor nation can no longer withstand a rich one. Wherefore, since wealth can be acquired only by industry and frugality, it may safely be predicted, that every nation, whose agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, shall be ruined by bad government, or exorbitant taxation, must infallibly fall under the yoke of its more provident neighbours. We may further conclude, that henceforward national strength will accompany national science and civilization; for none but civilized nations can maintain considerable standing armies; so that there is no reason to apprehend the future recurrence of those sudden overthrows of civilized empires by the influx of barbarous tribes, of which history affords many examples.

War costs a nation more than its actual expense; it costs besides, all that would have been gained, but for its occurrence.

When Louis XIV. in 1672, resolved in a fit of passion, to chastise the Dutch for the insolence of their newspaper writers, Boreel, the Dutch ambassador, laid before him a memorial showing that France through the medium of Holland, sold produce annually to foreign nations, to the amount of sixty millions fr. at the then scale of price; which will fall little short of 120 millions (22,000,000 of dollars) at the present. But the court treated his representations as the mere empty bravado of an ambassador.

To conclude: the charges of war would be very incorrectly estimated, were we to take no account of the havoc and destruction it occasions; for that one at least of the belligerents, whose territory happens to be the scene of operations, must be exposed to its ravages. The more industrious the nation, the more does it suffer from warfare. When it penetrates into a district abounding in agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial establishments, it is like a fire in a place full of combustibles; its fury is aggravated, and the devastation prodigious. Smith calls the soldier an unproductive labourer; would to God he were nothing more, and not a destructive one into the bargain! he not only adds no product of his own to the general stock of wealth, in return for the necessary subsistence he consumes, but is often set to work to destroy the fruits of other people's labour and toil, without doing himself any benefit.

The tardy, but irresistible expansion of intelligence will probably operate a still further change in external political relations, and with it a prodigious saving of expenditure for the purposes of war. Nations will be taught to know that they have really no interest in fighting one another; that they are sure to suffer all the calamities incident to defeat, while the advantages of success are altogether illusory. According to the international policy of the present day, the vanquished are sure to be taxed by the victor, and the victor by domestic authority: for the interest of loans must be raised by taxation. There is no instance on record, of any diminution of national expenditure being effected by the most successful issue of hostilities. And, what is the glory it can confer more than a mere toy of the most extravagant price, that can never even amuse rational minds for any length of time? Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever. To private individuals, the greatest possible benefit is entire freedom of intercourse, which can hardly be enjoyed except in peace. Nature prompts nations to mutual amity; and, if their governments take upon themselves to interrupt it, and engage them in hostility, they are equally inimical to their own people, and to those they war against. If their subjects are weak enough to second the ruinous vanity or ambition of their rulers in this propensity, I know not now to distinguish such egregious folly and absurdity, from that of the brutes that are trained to fight and tear each other to pieces, for the mere amusement of their savage masters.

But human intelligence will not stand still; the same impulse that has hitherto borne it onwards, will continue to advance it yet further. The very circumstance of the vast increase of expense attending national warfare has made it impossible for governments henceforth to engage in it, without the public assent, express or implied; and that assent will be obtained with the more difficulty, in proportion as the public shall become more generally acquainted with their real interest. The national military establishment will be reduced to what is barely sufficient to repel external attack; for which purpose little more is necessary, than a small body of such kinds of troops as can not be had without long training and exercise; as of cavalry and artillery. For the rest, nations will rely on their militia, and on the excellence of their internal polity: for it is next to impossible to conquer a people unanimous in their attachment to their national institutions; and their attachment will always be proportionate to the loss they will incur by a change of domination.