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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



this sudden desire of the French and 

 Germans to get possession of the 

 Chinese Empire ? If they do not 

 want it as an outlet for a surplus 

 population or for a population am- 

 bitious to improve its condition, what 

 do they want it for ? The answer to 

 these questions is to be found in the 

 powerfully aggressive impulse im- 

 parted to them by their military and 

 bureaucratic systems. As is well 

 known, these systems inspire a con- 

 tempt for industrial pursuits, which 

 require private initiative and enter- 

 prise, and lead young men anxious 

 to distinguish themselves to seek to 

 do so in the army or the civil serv- 

 ice, where they are cared for as re- 

 cipients of pensions in case of fail- 

 ure. But in both Germany and 

 France the number of places of this 

 kind is necessarily limited, and as a 

 consequence the demand has far ex- 

 ceeded the supply. A further con- 

 sequence is that the tests applied to 

 candidates for appointment have be- 

 come very severe. A still further 

 consequence is that after candidates 

 have spent the best part of their 

 lives in preparing themselves for a 

 certain kind of work, and fail, as 

 they often do, to get it, they consider 

 themselves too old to prepare for 

 anything else. Naturally they are 

 inclined to join what Prince Bis- 

 marck has fitly stigmatized as the 

 educated proletariat, and begin an 

 agitation for the vague and absurd 

 reforms known under the name of 

 socialism and anarchism. If places 

 could be found for such men and the 

 country relieved of their disquieting 

 presence by the establishment of a 

 colonial empire in a land like China, 

 where there is a vast industrious and 

 docile population to be ruled and ex- 

 ploited, would not an enterprise of 



this kind appeal, consciously or un- 

 consciously, to the leaders of a na- 

 tion ? Would not a vain and ambi- 

 tious man, like the German emperor, 

 see in it an opportunity not only to 

 gain an outlet for the military ac- 

 tivities of his people, but to make 

 for himself a name that would com- 

 pare with that of any of his Hohen- 

 zollern ancestors ? What is true of 

 him in a striking degree is true in a 

 less degree of every other victim of 

 the militant and bureaucratic spirit 

 of France and Germany. China is 

 wanted, therefore, not as a home for 

 landless populations, but as a place 

 for the soldiers and officials of these 

 countries to pillage. 



But, unless France and Germany 

 change their policy, China will have 

 her revenge. The time is certain to 

 come with them, as it is certain to 

 come with the American people, if 

 their example be followed, when the 

 same fate will, as Mr. Spencer pre- 

 dicts, overtake them that has over- 

 taken their victim. Great standing 

 armies of soldiers and officials, cou- 

 pled with constant aggressions upon 

 weaker nations, can not fail to pro- 

 duce again the same paralysis that 

 made the Mexicans and Peruvians 

 such easy prey for the Spaniards. 

 The immutable law of biology, that 

 benefit must always be commensu- 

 rate with merit, and the equally im- 

 mutable law of sociology, that mili- 

 tant institutions lead to foreign and 

 domestic aggression and finally to 

 national decay, can not be suspended. 

 Even in the case of Spain, there has 

 been an exemplification of this pro- 

 found and important truth. Why 

 should not the French, Germans, and 

 Americans exemplify it, if they pur- 

 sue the same career of shameless ag- 

 gression ? 



