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PROGRESS OF PEACE IN EUROPESource: Advocate of Peace (1847-1884), New Series, Vol. 2, No. 14 (FEBRUARY 15, 1870), p. 193Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27904578 .

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THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

On Earth Peach. .. . Nation shall not lift up Sword against Nation, neither shall thet learn War ant more.

New Series. BOSTON, FEBRUARY 15, 1870. No. 14.

PROGRESS OF PEACE IN EURO PK The cause of Peace is no visionary or Utopian scheme,

but one eminently practical and clearly feasible. It not

only proposes an object well defined, but points .out the j methods and means by which it can be attained. It shows how nations can, if they will, regulate intercourse and set tle disputes between themselves in essentially the same way that their own subjects do theirs, without a resort to blind, irresponsible reckless violence, and thus avert the alleged necessity of war in any case. It is a great work of pre vention that must of course take much time. No man in his senses imagines it can be done at once ; but we insist that it can be done in time without bloodshed or violence.

There have been in England and on the continent of

Europe some half a dozen Peace Congresses or General Con ventions, every one of which urged mutual proportional Dis armament; as a preliminary measure indispensable to any effective efforts towards abolishing the war system, or seri

ously mitigating its manifold evils. In Europe there has

long been among its nations a suicidal rivalry in prepara tions for war that imposes upon the people enormous bur dens, and threatens some of its leading nations with irredeemable bankruptcy. The pressure from this source is bearing more and more heavily on their subjects, and

compelling rulers to consider in earnest the question of a

general, simultaneous reduction of their armaments. They have no thought of abolishing the war system, but are in tent only on abating some of its huge and manifold evils.

It is a significant fact, though little heeded as yet by the million, that this movement like every other for the re moval or mitigation of the evils insep arable from the war

system, originated with the associated friends of peace. Nearly everything effectively done or attempted for this

purpose may be traced to their agency or influence. This we could easily prove, if necessary or desirable ; but we will only say here, that it was the wise and zealous activity of our co-workers abroad that led to the agitation now

going on in Europe relative to a general reduction of her vast and enormously expensive armaments.

DISARMAMENT. Ind?pendance Belge,

The idea of international disarmament is evidently making its way in Europe, It tend* more from day to day to get out

of the regions of mere speculation. The universal horror which war inspires ; the contempt which more and more attaches to that pretended glory of the field of battle, which consists in cutting the throats of the greatest possible number of men ; the improved arms, which impress upon contemporary conflicts a character of atrocity capable of terrifying even military fan aticism itself ; the solidarity of material interests, as we?l as of

political and social principles, between civilized nations; in short the truth at present recognized by all, that great standing armies are henceforth the sole auxiliaries of despotism-~-the$e are the conclusive arguments, the irrefutable proofs, produced by those who affirm that international disarmament is no

longer an Utopia, but a reform that is near at hand. A member of the English Parliament, Mr. H. Bichard? has

been charged by the Peace Society in London to go and inquire on this point into the state of feeling in the principal capitals of the continent. On learning of his arrival in Paris, the Committee of the International League of Peace hastened to offer to the honorable gentleman a banquet, at which were

?resent, among others, MM. Jules Favre, Jules Simon, and

'achadr, deputies of the Left. Mr. Richard made known the results of his mission at Brussels, the Hague, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, and Florence. He stated that in all those capitals the

public sentiment raised itself at present with equal energy against that odious custom of wholesale massacre which the barbarous ages have transmitted to us. He showed, also, that the military charges, as immoral as

they are unproductive, en

counter everywhere the same reprobation. Even in Prussia, where patriotism suffered itself for a moment to be blinded by the powder of Sadowa, and to push armaments to excess from the apprehensions which the policy of the Tuilleries inspired, the reaction of public opinion is also manifest.

Of this Mr. Richard has obtained certain proof, by seeing M. Virchow present to the Second Chamber at Berlin his mo tion relating, not only to a reduction of the military expenses of the Northern Confederation, but to an international disarm ament. He showed the importance of the support of that mo tion by ninety-nine votes. At Dresden, a similar motion has been adopted by a large majority. Also at Munich, at Vienna, and at Florence, as at the Hague and Brussels, Mr. Richard has been assured by men representing the policy of liberty and

progress in all the

parliaments, that the moment is come for

bringing into the region of real facts a project hitherto consid ered by the scepticism of diplomacy as a mere Utopia.

The honorable member announced that a motion, conceived in the same spirit ae that of M. Virchow's, will be presented during the coming session to the House of Commons. He also

strongly advised that the members of European parliaments, at least such of them as are determined to pursue that great re form imperatively demanded by the wishes of all nations, as well as by the precarious financial condition of most of them, should come to an understanding with each other as to the best means of attaining their object, especially by a manifestation to be made simultaneously in the different chambers. MM. Jules Favre and Jules Simon referred to the previous

efforts which had been made in the tribune of the Legislative Body to popularize in France the ideas of peace and disarma ment. It may be affirmed that in no country more than in France have these ideas taken possession of the public mind. M. Jules Simon very judiciously called attention to the fact that, among all the candidates who, at the general election in

May and June, aspired to the honor of representing the Lib?ral

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