though we are not unaware of the very grave considerations which are involved, we are constrained to record our opinion that full advantage cannot be obtained for the money spent by the country until the connection be more closely drawn than at present between the line battalions of each brigade, and between them and the militia battalions of the sub-district." They consider this is best to be effected by their being treated as one regiment, under eight territorial designations, the line battalions contributing the first and second, the depot being common to all and contributing the last, and the militia battalions contributing the rest. The existing numerical designations, dear as they are to military memories, are to be obliterated. The changes here recommended are radical enough, and are all in two directions-one, that of combining, in the most compact manner possible, all the parts of an army into easily manageable groups; and the other, that of permanently connecting each group with a definite territorial district. This is, in fact, identical, in spirit at least, with the German system of localization. The direct and indirect influences of this new mode of organization are not hard to trace. The army can no Military institutions thus inter woven with the whole national life. longer, in any country, be a remote fact and insti tution, only thought of in time of War, or, at the most, only brought to mind at the period of recruiting, or at seasons of occasional debate in legislative assemblies. The new policy is to merge the military institutions with the civil and social life of the country, and the civil and social life with them. Of course, those institutions are likely, for the moment, to draw energy and sustenance from the bracing association. But if they are ever recognized as being be universally excessive, and to a constantly growing extent needrecognized. less, the popular insurrection against them will be decided, widespread, and irresistible, just in proportion to their territorial distribution. No misunderstanding of the existence, the nature, and the extent of the evil will hamper the agitation The pressure will, therefore, for its removal or restriction. The newly-discovered forces of effective local self-government will fan and feed the flame. Every year of Peace, every season of impoverished national resources, will accumulate arguments for reducing armies and promoting an international policy of Peace. A common and exactly distributed pressure will be the best preparation possible for a united and universal reaction. tion of new in (4) Modes and Instruments of Warfare.-It needs a very superficial glance backward at recent battle-fields, or around at the military preparations assiduously at work in all the leading countries of Europe, to note the decisive changes which are in course of accomplishment in the modes of warfare. Chemical, mechanical, electrical, aeronautical, and mathematical inventions and discoveries are pressed into the service of War. Civil education is forced to contribute, and whole nations are drilled in the school-room, if not in the nursery. The railroad, the steamship, the telegraph, each new industrial appliance and convenience, are eagerly laid hold of so as to render War more widely and infalliRapid adapta- bly disastrous. It were a gain, indeed, if War could ventions to mil- be fought out by machinery and not by living men. itary purposes. But, unfortunately, it is not so. The elaborate mechanism only serves to prepare and clear the field for an exorbitantly enlarged number of living combatants-these, too, no longer unimpassioned, professional soldiers, but peaceful citizens, carrying back to their homes-if they reach them—the coarse and bitter memories and hostile passions of the battle-field. So far as the purely military nature and products of these incessant and comprehensive changes go, they seem to be as follows: The exclusive possession of any single scientific advantage of a signal kind might hereafter decide the fortunes of a campaign; but then, in the present circumstances of international intercourse, and of unresting military competition, proceeding even in times of Expense involved by their adoption. Peace, it is increasingly unlikely that any single State will succeed in maintaining any such exclusive advantage. The use of the new military implements and machinery will call for a better trained and educated soldiery, and the novel method of recruiting, as practised on the Continent, harmonizes with this demand. The general result is likely to be favorable to the private soldier's condition, education, and general training, and his opinion and feelings must become a serious element of political consideration. Some of the new improvements are directed to multiplying the action of explosive shells, balls, and bullets, thereby occasioning suffering and not death; others have in view the "demoralizing" the enemy's front at a greater distance, so as to precipitate the "decision," and afford an earlier opportunity for an advance. Other improvements, again, are addressed to facilitating commissariat arrangements, as by employing in War ordinary trading companies for the purpose, or to rendering engineering operations more easily disposable and effective, or to determining the exact proportions and circumstances in which cavalry, heavy and light infantry, and artillery ought severally to be employed. There can be no doubt that by the time a sufficient amount of intellectual energy, guided by adequate experimentation, has been devoted in different countries to the problem of how the new improvements can be turned to the best account, War will reproduce all the last achievements of civilization. But it will do this at an almost inconceivable cost for each country both in Peace and in War; and there is no reason, exfor anticipating cept one grounded on economy or poverty, which need cause any one country to lag behind the rest. Thus the question of success in War must become increasingly one as to whether a nation can pay for it, or will prefer to pay for it, in the place of paying for other things. When each nation is firmly assured of this, the speculative hilar This waste a further reason that War will become unpopular. ity which now belongs to War will have vanished, and it cannot be long before the nations, under liberal and constitutional governments, combine to adopt some scheme of mutual assurance less extravagant, calamitous, and inhuman than that of self-protection. SECTION VIII. OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES AND CONGRESSES. the present century. ONE of the most obvious methods that suggests itself of setObjects of Con- tling existing disputes without armed conflict, and ferences during making political arrangements which may prevent the reappearance of such disputes in time to come, is that of summoning Conferences or Congresses in which all the States immediately, or even remotely, interested are represented. This method has been largely resorted to during the present century with very varying degrees of success. The purposes of resorting to it have been manifold. Among these purposes may be mentioned (1) the making detailed territorial, financial, or political arrangements, contemplated by the general provisions of a Treaty, especially a Treaty of Peace; (2) the interpretation or modification of the terms of a Treaty; (3) the consideration of the conditions on which a temporary truce may be converted into a Treaty of Peace; (4) the consideration of the basis on which questions relating to the boundaries and new settlement or Neutralization of States should be determined by Treaty; (5) the establishment of new rules, or the republication in an improved form of existing rules, of International Law; (6) the acceptance of some novel principle of general international action or policy. It is worth while illustrating these several purposes for which Conferences have been, or may be, held, by a review of the sub Vienna Congress, 1814-'15. jects of the chief Conferences which have been held in Europe since the Peace of Paris in 1814. The Treaty of Paris of the 30th of May in that year provided, in its 32d Article, that "All the Powers engaged on either side in the present War should, within the space of two months, send Plenipotentiaries to Vienna, for the purpose of regulating, in General Congress, the arrangements which were to complete the provisions of the present Treaty." The Plenipotentiaries met in Congress at Vienna on the 22d of September, 1814, and closed their labors on the 19th of June, 1815. The result was the Treaty of Vienna, of 9th of June, 1815, which contained no less than seventeen "Annexes," that is, declarations, engagements, or special Treaties of particular States, and comprehended a general settlement of the international relations, and in some cases of the internal constitution, of the chief States of Continental Europe. Denunciation of slavery. By the 15th Annex, the Plenipotentiaries of all the eight Powers which signed the Treaty of Vienna (that is, Great Britain, Austria, France, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Spain, and Sweden), solemnly denounced the slavetrade, proclaimed their wish to put an end to "a scourge which had so long desolated Africa, degraded Europe, and afflicted humanity;" and declared in "the face of Europe that, considering the abolition of the slave-trade as a measure particularly worthy of their attention, conformable to the spirit of the times and to the generous principles of their august sovereigns, they were animated with the sincere desire of concurring in the most prompt and effectual execution of this measure by all the means at their disposal." Congress at Seven years later-in November, 1822-a Congress, composed of the Powers which were represented at the Vienna Congress, with the exception of Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, met at Verona, and after reciting that the commerce in slaves, solemnly proscribed; still continued, had |