with the greatest comparative cheapness. The more firmly this principle becomes established, the more fine and intricate become the commercial and monetary relationships between States, and the more disastrous and paralyzing becomes even the apprehension of War. This increasing subdivision of labor is of especial importance in respect of the growing inter-dependence of States for the supply of food. Old countries, as a rule, import food, and new countries export it. It is the old countries which, for a variety of reasons, are most prone to War; and if War does not mean famine, it must at least press-through the bread market, and even the meat market-on every part of the population of a belligerent State.

II. The modern aspects of the Wages question must directly affect War. Wages are rising everywhere, and the position of all classes better and more hopeful.

Causes operat ing to render War unpopular in the future.

of laborers is becoming

Service in the army or

navy must become comparatively less desirable, and compulsory service can only be procured at the price of an ever-increasing national cost and discontent. A keen competi

Increasing cost of War.

Rise of wages. tion is descried in the near future between the industries (so-called) of War and of Peace. The demand of labor for War, where the labor is forced, will not raise wages generally; and where the labor is not forced, it will be more and more abandoned, or else purchased only on ruinous terms. III. The growing expensiveness of War introduces a similar class of considerations to the last. When it is calculated how precious are the materials which most of the modern appliances of science to warlike purposes consume, on how vast a scale the applications take place, and what an amount of waste and loss are occasioned merely by tentative experiments, the cost of War is seen to be assuming more and more prodigious dimensions. So far as this cost is reckoned as the price of assurance, and, therefore, as akin to the necessary cost of production, the fact of War counteracts all the

other tendencies of civilization toward the cheapening of this

cost.

Growth of International intercourse.

IV. There is a manifestly growing tendency in labor to move with unparalleled facility from country to country. Thus all Europe must shortly become one labor market. The increased study of foreign languages, religious toleration, assimilation of political institutions and laws, a common postal system, projects for an International currency, and for a common fiscal system-all combine to diminish what is narrow and blindly selfish in the sense of nationality, while fortifying what is sound and precious in it; and this must operate in favor of Peace.

Interests of land-owners and capitalists.

The

V. The interests and sympathies of laborers are thus likely to be wholly in favor of pacific relations. interests of land proprietors are in favor of the condition which makes that of which they have a monopoly most in demand-that is, Peace-because Peace is indispensable to material progress. The interest of the farmercapitalist is for the moment in favor of War, as raising agricultural prices; is still more decisively in favor of Peace, as favorable to trade generally, as keeping down the price of machinery and labor, and keeping open foreign markets for the disposal of produce. If the capitalist is a trader, his interests (except in the case of the few who draw a precarious profit from sustaining the War) are undividedly in favor of Peace.

Influence of the industrial and commercial classes.

VI. The particular modes in which the interests and sentiments of all the industrial and trading classes will make themselves felt are in efforts for a modification of the Laws of War in favor of the protection of Neutral (and, ultimately, all other) trade, in promoting a conciliatory and just policy at all times between States, in humanizing the conduct of War, in rigidly preventing its extension, and in making beneficial, equal, and far-sighted Treaties.

SECTION II.

OF THE LAWS OF WAR IN THEIR BEARING ON PEACE.

Recent efforts to limit the evil effects of War.

Ir was a maxim of the arch-thief Jonathan Wild, as recorded by Fielding, his biographer, that he and his comrades should "Never do more mischief to another than was necessary to the effecting his purpose; for that mischief was too precious a thing to be thrown away." The last twenty-five years have been distinguished by a series of conscious efforts to give a practical application to this doctrine; and these efforts have been made as much by the people who delight in War as by those who have become the reluctant victims of it.

Laws for the limitation of severity in War are of very ancient date in European history; and it may be important to consider the modes in which these laws originated, as well as the moral justification on which they rest. But, before entering on the broader inquiry, it will be convenient to recapitulate briefly the more patent efforts that have been made of late years to establish on a firmer basis, to codify, and to amend, the chief rules which, in practice, have long regulated and restricted the extreme use of the so-called rights of War.

shown to Nentrals and non

combatants during the

The Crimean War, in 1854, which first broke up the lull of Consideration forty years of Peace, was happily signalized, not only by an extremity of courteous regard, on the part of all the belligerents, for the interests of Neutrals, but also by an almost unprecedented consideration for the claims of non-combatants in the belligerent States, of prisoners of War, and even, in some respects, of the private commerce conducted by citizens of the belligerent

Crimean War.

Principles laid
down in the
Declaration
of Paris.

States themselves. This courtesy and amenity in practical action was embodied as a principle and startingpoint for the future in the Declaration annexed to the Treaty of Paris of 1856, signed by the representatives of France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, Turkey, and England, and to which about forty other States have since given in their adhesion.

The immediate object of this Declaration was the conciliation of Neutral interests; but it was, in practice, impossible to conciliate these interests, so far as maritime warfare was concerned, without mitigating the severity of War in its effects on citizens of the belligerent States. The abolition of privateering, and the protection of an enemy's merchandise under a Neutral flag, as well as the stricter interpretation to be henceforward applied to blockades, were benefits conferred not only upon Neutral States, but in which the private citizens and traders of the belligerent States also have their share.

Professor

Lieber's "Instructions" for the American army.

The next epoch in the republication and amendment of the Laws of War is marked by the sort of code drawn up by Professor Lieber, and-after being submitted to and approved by a committee of officers-sanctioned by President Lincoln just before the commencement of hostilities between the Northern and Southern States of America. This code is entitled "Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field." Professor Lieber, the author, was a Prussian by birth, and in his youth had served in the Prussian army, taking part in the campaigns of 1814 and 1815. This is a matter of some interest, because of the close relationship observable between these "Instructions" and the regulations of the so-called "Prussian Military Code "- -a code which has never been published, but the substance of which can be pretty accurately collected from the constant references made to it by Prussian commanders in the proclamations and manifestoes issued in the

course of the late invasion of France. The Instructions here referred to were, in fact, the first attempt to make a comprehensive survey of all the exigencies to which a War of invasion is likely to give rise; and it is said on good authority that, with one exception (that of concealing in an occupied district arms or provisions for the enemy), no case presented itself during the Franco-German War of 1870 which had not been provided for in the American Instructions.

Conventions of

The interval between the outbreak of hostilities in America and the Franco-German War was marked by two Geneva and St. generous and successful efforts, known as the ConPetersburg. ventions of Geneva and St. Petersburg, to mitigate, by systematic compromises and arrangements, the effects of warfare on the sick and wounded, and to discourage the use of barbarous implements, which might inflict torturing pain in excess of any military advantage to be gained by the use of them.

The Convention of Geneva was signed on August 22d, 1864, by the Plenipotentiaries of Switzerland, Baden, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Spain, Würtemburg, and, subsequently, Great Britain. The Convention provided, in a series of Articles, for the Neutralization of ambulances and military hospitals, and of all persons engaged in the medical service or the transport of the wounded, and also of chaplains. A distinctive flag and arm-badge were to be adopted, which were to bear a red cross on a white ground.

The Convention of St. Petersburg, in 1868, was entered into, on the proposition of Russia, by Great Britain, Austria and Hungary, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Prussia and the North German Confederation, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and Würtemburg. The instrument recited that "the only legitimate object which States should endeavor to accomplish during War is to weaken the military forces of the enemy;