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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Feb. 1, 1886. 



He discloses the rottenness of wliat the multitude regard 

 with fond admiration, the folly of what they regard as 

 the efstnce of worldly wisdom, the essential weakness of 

 what they regard as symbolical of might. We doubt if 

 his book will be popular ; but we are certain that it 

 ought (o be, if the many knew their own interests. We 

 can understand that as an essay written in competition 

 for the prize of one hundred pcunds offered by the great 

 advertising soap company, this tssay ( which in one chapter 

 insists on the inherent vice of certain modern trading 

 methods) would have no chance of success. But we are 

 certain that nothing yet said about the depression of 

 trade bj' politicians has been better worth close and 

 careful study tlir.n what has been here advanced by an 

 eminent naturalist, — the secret of whose success in dealing 

 with his subject has been that he has applied to it the 

 strictly scientific method. 



Mr. Wallace rejects the popular explanations (i the 

 depression, without denying the influence which over- 

 production, Protection as against British trade. Protec- 

 tion as injuring other countries, bad harvests, disturbances 

 of the currency, and other such causes may havi' exerted. 

 He urges the just objection that the influence of thfse 

 causes does not synchronise with the progress of the 

 depression which they have been called on to explain. 

 They existed before it began, or started after it was 

 already in progress. This objection is justified by 

 the methods of scientific reasoning. The depression has 

 been too definite in character, too marked in its rise, cul- 

 mination, and in at least the beginning of its diminution, 

 not to suggest that the cause or causes, whatever they 

 may have been, must have originated and progressed jiui'i 

 passu with the effects. 



Some at least of the causes suggested by Mr. Wallace 

 have probably been much more potent in their influence 

 than those commonly alleged. 



In the first place he calls attention to the mischievous 

 effects of great loans to foreign nations, and in particular 

 to the more rotten sort of despotisms. During the years 

 1870-75 there was a mania for foreign Government loans, 

 which England adviinced to the tune of 260 millions, 

 besides large sums advanced for foreign railways and 

 other undertakings. In so far as such loans were directed 

 to advance commercial projects their influence could not 

 be bad. But the greater part of the Government loans, 

 and no inconsiderable portion of the rest, went to 

 strengthen the influence of despotisms and to supply 

 means for the lavish expenditure of persons who care 

 little how they squander money for which others will 

 have to pay. For a time, doubtless, there was a sudden 

 inflation of trade, though it required but a careful study 

 of details to see that the growth of trade " by leaps and 

 bounds," as Mr. Gladstone expressed it, im[iliedno trust- 

 worthy progress. Shortly came the inevitable reaction. 

 The money advanced had been in the main squandei'ed. 

 The interest — heavy or the advance would not have been 

 obtained — had to be met by grinding taxes. The bulk of 

 the foreign populations, on which we really rely for 

 our foreign trade — the business supplied by the ruling 

 bodies being by no means permanent — have been unable, 

 owing to the pressure put upon them by the despotisms 

 under which they groan, to be such good customers as 

 they had been before. 



Associating with the effect of foreign loans the in- 

 fluence of increased war exjjenditure, which we may 



ture, the increase of s-peculation and o£ millionaires, and the 

 depopulation of ihe rurjl districts, with suggested lemedies." By 

 Alfred Russell Wallace, (llacmillan & Co., London.) 



justly do when we consider in how large degree the loans 

 have been raised to meet or to anticipate military ex- 

 penses, we have only to consider the increasing annual 

 expenses of the principal European countries, to see how 

 seriously the moneys raised by loans are in the first place 

 needed, and in the second place squandered, — for all ab- 

 normal increase of expenditure may safely be regarded as 

 implying corresponding waste :-- 



Our own annual expenditure increised between 1870 

 r.nd 1884, from 75 to 87 millions, or 16 per cent. This, 

 being less than the increase of cur pojulation in the 

 time may be regarded as reasonable, the real trouble with 

 us being not the rate of increase during the last fifteen 

 years, but the already high revenue raised before that 

 time for purposes not wholly beneficial to the nation at 

 large. So far as our revenue has been concerned — and 

 fortunately with us revenue and expenditure correspond 

 pretty closely — we may be content ; the results observed 

 are not iinwc rthy of a free nation and a civilised com- 

 munity. But turn now to foreign continental nations, 

 and we find results which cannot but be considered as 

 discreditable to the rulers of the nations concerned as 

 they have been mischievous to the subject peoples directly, 

 and indirectly to ourselves. The annual expenditure of 

 Austria has inci-eastd from £55,000,000 to J94,000,000, 

 or 71 per cent. ; that of France from £8.5, 000,000 to 

 £142,500,(100, or 68 j)er cent. ; that of Germany from 

 £54,000,000 to £112,500,000, or 108 per cent. ; that of 

 Italy from £40,000,000 to £61,500,000, or 54 per cent. ; 

 and that of Rus.sia from £66,000,000 to £114,500,000, or 

 74 per cent. The increase of the expenditure of the five 

 chief continental powers has been from £270,000,000 to 

 £525,000,000, or no ,less than £255,000,000 per annum, 

 or considerably more than £1 per head of the population 

 The State taxation has nearly doubled, and local taxa- 

 tion has in many cases increased in yet greater degree. 

 Can we wonder if the populations of tho.'e countries are 

 less profitable customers than they formerly were ? 



There is this further mischief, that by having so much 

 British money invested in these foreign loans, applied 

 partly in ways altogether alien to our own ideas cf what 

 is right and just, it becomes our interest to support the 

 Governments of those countries as against their peoples, 

 from whom alone the interest of our loans can be raised. 

 When this consideration is extended to certain Govern- 

 ments which are not partly but wholly and absolutely 

 iniquitous, we recognise still more disastrous effects from 

 our undue readiness to advance money to everj' foreign 

 nation ready to offer a sufficiently high rate of interest,— 

 or in other words ready to afford sufficiently obvious 

 evidence of unworthiness. 



Military expenditures in themselves present a most 

 painful subject for study : but it seems idle in the 

 present condition of Ihe human race, even in commu- 

 nities regarding themselves as cultured, to dwell on the 

 melancholy spectacle of the energies devoted by races 

 claiming to be not only civilised but religious, on the 

 business of destruction. Viewed from ( utside, as by au 

 inhabitant of ajuother planet, many if the leading nations 

 of the earth seem to regard the human race as most nobly 

 employed in striving fo destroy itself c-fl' the face of the 

 earth. That the rapid growth of armies and armaments 

 on the continent of Europe, since the wars by which 

 Germany has of late acquired an unenviable reputation 

 for able savagery, has had much to do with recent com- 

 mei'cial depression, no one can deny who considers the 

 utterly unfruitful character of even the work of produc- 

 tion as applied to warlike jireparafions. 



