As a matter of fact, a war between Great Britain and Germany would inflict the most grievous loss upon both, no matter how long or how short the struggle might be, matter which of them won. Let us figure the basis of the available statistics of international trade.

and no this out

Germany buys goods from us to the value of nearly 50 millions sterling every year, and she sells to us goods worth some 40 millions. What would happen to this trade if war broke out? Strictly speaking, it would, of course, close down at once Direct trade between the two countries would become impossible; but there would probably be a good deal of indirect traffic through France and Holland. Still, even allowing for this, one might safely say that the volume of British-German trade would be diminished by not less than half- that is to say it would be less than 50 millions sterling, instead of nearly 100 millions. German trade with India—amounting in the aggregate to more than 25%1⁄2 millions sterling per annum-would also be pretty nearly wiped out. Think of the distress and unemployment which this would mean to thousands in Great Britain, in India and in Germany. Another thing-when trade is lost it very seldom comes back. While Great Britain and Germany were fighting with each other, their trade and commerce would be snapped up by France, America and Japan.

But the longest war must come to an end. I think the most probable outcome of a British-German war would be that the two Powers would get sick of fighting, and would simply make peace when they had had enough of it. But one never knows what may happen, and it is just possible that in the event of a few bad defeats the British Government might get into a state of panic, very much as the French Government did in 1870, and make peace

on the terms of a big indemnity. Would Germany really score in such an event? I doubt it very much. In the first place a war with Great Britain would be so frightfully expensive that almost no indemnity she could enforce would really recoup her for it. But apart from this Great Britain is, as we have seen, a very big customer of Germany-one of Germany's biggest customers, in fact. Now I need hardly point out that if you want to retain a good customer, you are going quite the wrong way to work if you first of all knock him down, and then take all his money from him. The bigger the indemnity the Germans exacted from Great Britain the less able would Great Britain become to buy goods from Germany. So far as British-German trade was concerned, Germany would be killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

I grant that the case was somewhat different in the Franco-German war. There the trade between the two countries was not anything like what it is between Great Britain and Germany. Consequently the huge indemnity which was wrested from France did not deprive Germany of a good customer, while it made her so flush of cash that her national and commercial activities were stimulated enormously. But that was nearly half a century ago. The world has moved rapidly since then, and the various nations have become so subtly inter-connected by social and commercial relationships that it would be impossible for one Power to be" bled white" by another Power without that Power being one of the first to feel the ill-effects of its own victory.

It seems strange to the man of sense, but the outbreak of war is almost invariably signalised by demonstrations of rejoicing. In the old days people

actually used to ring the church bells.

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You remember

Walpole's bitter jest when a demonstration of this kind took place on England declaring war upon Prussia 'They ring their bells now, but soon they will wring their hands." Some of us can remember the light hearted gaiety with which Great Britain went into the struggle with the Boers, and how the London stockbrokers sent a telegram to President Kruger "For what you are about to receive may the Lord make you truly thankful " I suppose the average Englishman loves the spectacle of a fight, especially when he has not personally to bear the brunt of it, and the general public is as excited at the prospect of a war as the queue outside the pit door is for the play to begin. Never mind about paying for it-that will come afterwards!

But as time goes on, and the novelty of the struggle wears off, a very different mood steals over the public mind. There is nothing in the world, I suppose, so depressing or so maddening as a long drawn out war, such as the South African War, for example, or the American Civil War. Men begin to feel how wearing and ruinous it is, and grow impatient to see an end of this wasteful expenditure of life and money, and this cruel disturbance of trade. But it is also borne in upon them—and this is an excellent thing too-that it is easier to plunge into war than to get out of it. As regards South Africa we were a good deal luckier than the French in 1870. We only lost 200 millions sterling and 20,000 lives, while they lost at least as much money and thirty times as many lives, in addition to suffering invasion, humiliation, and a fine of 200 millions more. Broadly speaking, however, our experience and theirs were very similar. We both

plunged rashly into a foolish and disastrous war, and the result has been to make us both chary about going to war, ever since. This impatience over a lingering and indecisive struggle was exemplified in a semi-pathetic manner by Mr. Chamberlain in a speech which he delivered after the Boer war had been in progress for about a year. Now that the war is over "--he said. Alas! it was not over for another year and a half. The South African war also illustrates another aspect of these great international struggles; for it was that which eventually drove the Unionists from power and subjected them to the greatest electoral defeat ever known. There is one thing that stands out above all others in English history, and that is that a war is always fatal to the Government which is responsible for it,whether it is in the right or the wrong doesn't matter. The British elector may like to see a fight, but he sternly exacts a forfeit from the Government which is so ill-advised as to gratify this taste of his. Ever since the passing of the great Reform Bill the British electors have shown themselves increasingly resentful of any policy which leads to war.

It behoves

I have endeavoured to show that war is a business which, nowadays, can only have one ending-the international bankruptcy court for both the parties engaging in it. And not merely this, but its effects are felt to the remotest corners of the earth, and those effects are seldom or never anything but disastrous. us then, as Christians and citizens to set our faces against war as resolutely as in us lies. As I have said, it would be Utopian to hope that war can be eliminated while human society is constituted as it is. I do not urge that we should never fight under any circumstances, But without dwelling upon the

innumerable moral and humanitarian objections which may be raised against it, it is emphatically such bad business, even under the most favourable conditions, that we are surely bound to avoid it by every possible means. It must indeed be a frightful alternative which should drive us into the arms of war.

A. J. FRASER BLAIR.