once installed in power, using without scruple its ability to levy contributions upon the corporations, and to distribute these levies like the Roman corn-grants, as gratuities among the poorer voters, would be a self-perpetuating body more absolute for a time at least than the most absolute of voting trusts. For the latter operates under the law and subject to the law, while the former would be above all law or fear of law except that of the paying power of its victims. The American people should at least be very sure that the evils to be cured are greater than those which the remedy itself would bring, before they turn with too light a heart to so portentous a change in the constitutional system of checks and balances established by our fathers, with blood and prayer, that ours might be a Government of laws and not of men.

The considerations which are presented here do not constitute an argument against intelligent discussion of further legislation on the problem of the corporations. Within the States the corporation laws can probably be improved in many cases in the interest of the investor. In the nation perhaps some simple laws might be enacted for the protection of the consumer without disturbing the rights of the shareholder. It would be as idle for the shareholders in corporations to claim that we are already living in an ideal world as it would be for their critics to seek to go back to the time when limited liability was almost unknown and when safe investments were confined to Government bonds.

Few will contend that we are living in a world in which economic forces can be trusted to work out absolutely unfettered by law those economic harmonies, perfect as the music of the spheres, which were the dream of Bastiat. What is here written is set down simply to promote intelligent discrimination in the effects of proposed legislation, careful weighing of the hidden dangers as well as the obvious results of extending Federal control too far and too rapidly, and dispassionate consideration of all aspects of the great problem of best protecting the individual American without impairing his freedom of thought and action and his right to the proceeds of his labor. There should be clearer thinking, less blind hostility to wealth, whether in individual or corporate form, and absolute definitions of what is sought by new measures, whether it be simply protection for the investor or the consumer or the destruction of industries and property. Those who are not impelled by the latter purpose shall take care not to be made cat's-paws by those who are.

If momentary prejudice and desire for political capital are excluded from consideration, it is at least questionable whether the time is ripe for new legislation of a drastic character in regard to corporations. It is apparent that important interests are timorous as to the effects of such legislation.

upon business and investments. Whether they are right or wrong in this timidity, it may fairly be said that the burden of proof in favor of any specific Federal law should be put upon those who advocate it. Business interests should not stand in the way of the national life or well-being. Where a clear need exists for legislation which is injurious or dangerous to them, those interests must give way. Their willingness to make such a sacrifice has been shown on many occasions. To name but one, in 1861 the associated banks of New York willingly came to the aid of the Government when a public loan could not well be floated and acceded to the demand that they should pay the instalments of their temporary loan into the Sub-treasury in coin instead of by the usual methods of transferring credit, although they well knew and emphatically declared that in submitting to this ill-advised demand of Secretary Chase, they were impairing their coin reserves and inviting the suspension of specie payments with its Pandora's box of evils.

If a similar necessity exists to-day for Federal legislation inimical to business interests, those interests should give way; but if there is no such clear necessity, and if the remedies for supposed evils are inchoate and their results are dubious, it is not apparent why legislation should be insisted upon pending careful consideration of the entire subject in all its bearings, economic, political and financial, including observation of like experiments in other countries. When ills assail the State, her best citizens are bound to seek for remedies; but when such remedies are proposed, the burden should lie upon their proposers to prove that they are real and not quack remedies. In the absence of a great and present menace to the national life, they should be adopted only after they have been carefully weighed by sane and temperate men and their benefits in their minds clearly and greatly outweigh the risks of change.

Business men and

It is delicate work to experiment with industry. financiers are trained through life for such work. They must by the nature of their occupation make experiments and take the consequences of their blunders and their discoveries. It is doubtful if Government officials can more skilfully make these experiments. If tempted to use their great powers rashly, without fully weighing the consequences, they should reflect that

"It is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant."

when by so doing they may arrest the wheels of industry, spread terror and paralysis through the world of trade and above all stifle and pervert that fine spirit of foresight, initiative and intelligent daring which are the distinguishing traits of the American man of business, and have made possible the imperial progress of our country during more than a century of internal industrial freedom.

GERMANY, FRANCE AND THE PEACE OF EUROPE

W

GENERAL RICCIOTTI GARIBALDI.

ROME

HEN the allies dismembered the Empire of Napoleon I., at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was generally thought necessary to weaken France by confiscating part of her original territory. With a profound knowledge or perception of French character, Wellington, however, protested forcibly against any such step, and in an official paper gave as reason for his protest that the French, by ceaseless agitation to regain their lost provinces, would keep all Europe in a state of tension more serious in its effects than any war.

That Wellington saw clearly, has been proved by the history of Europe from 1871 to the present day. Bismarck lacked the wisdom of the English statesman; or perhaps allowed his Pangermanic aspirations to overcome his caution. However that may be, he prepared, for his own country and for all Europe, a future the central figure in which was to be a France, not only wounded in her dignity as a military state, but ever eager to avenge her loss of position and prestige.

It is quite true that France herself had set a bad example when she forced the Piedmontese Kingdom to cede Savoy and Nice to her. For this action there was little excuse; for the intervention of France in the Austrian war had been financially liquidated by the Piedmontese state. The cession of these two provinces, opposed strongly but too late by the English Government, was in fact a personal compensation, exacted by Napoleon III., for his failure to obtain an Italian kingdom for his relative Plon-Plon. This exaction, as I have heard eminent statesmen maintain, cost France Alsace and Lorraine.

It would have been providential indeed if the other Powers had called to mind the prophetic words of Lord Wellington, and had consequently opposed and prevented even the partial dismemberment of France. But Germany, with the impenitent Bismarck at her head, had even more drastic measures in view. She prepared to reduce France, by a second war, to a condition in which it would have been impossible for her to regain her lost provinces perhaps for centuries. English interference, a fact that Frenchmen generally forget, prevented what might have been the destruction of France as a first-class power.

Since this check the Germans have worked ceaselessly to consolidate their position as against that of France. Crispi's feminine sensitiveness to ridicule they have used very cleverly to drag Italy into the Triple Alli

Copyright, 1904, Frederick A. Richardson, all rights reserved.

ance. In spite of the new Russian friendship with France, they have kept up the cordiality which has always existed between Berlin and St. Petersburg. Even Turkey, which the cautious German mind recognized before the other Powers as a factor in possible European complications; even Turkey has been made much of to such an extent that German influence at Constantinople is equal, if not superior, to that of any other Power. No pains have been spared to pacify even the French, and though German diplomacy has always refused to recognize officially an open "Question " as to AlsaceLorrain, yet it has been made clear by indirect means that Germany might relinquish a portion of these provinces if France would finally give up the rest.

With a pertinacity for which the world would scarce have given her credit, France on her side has been steadily strengthening her position; first by joining Russia in an alliance which probably means only a territorial guarantee; second by re-establishing her old relations with Italy, and finally by meeting England in a friendly spirit in the many vexatious questions which have come up during the extension of their colonial possessions. Especially in southern Egypt and in Morocco, France has made possible a cordial state of things which lately culminated, not so much in the personal reception given by the Parisians to King Edward, as in the very warm greeting given to President Loubet in London. Thus France, as well as Germany, has steadily prepared for what each intuitively understands will be the final resolution of the rivalry which has existed between them for centuries.

Though the idea of revenge has lost, for the French mind, something of its idealistic charm through having been used as a battle-cry by the antiRepublican parties, it was never more deeply rooted in the French heart. How true this is the following anecdote may suggest: In a friendly chat one day with M. Delcasse, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, the writer of this article ventured to ask why France had given way so early to England in the Fashoda affair. The Minister answered almost angrily, "Cannot you understand that, while France and Germany balance each other in their land forces, France is much the stronger on the sea? A war with England would probably have meant, if nothing else, the loss of our navy, the only thing in which we are superior to Germany. Rather than risk that, I was ready to submit to any humiliation." These words show the feeling of all France, her ever-burning desire to wipe out the effects and even the remembrance of "L'annee terrible."

The ever-existing fear of complications that may arise from the unsettled relations between these two powerful European states has forced every other nationality into enormous expenditure for armament. As this excessive

expenditure has necessitated severe taxation, which has weighed mainly on the laboring classes, these have sought refuge either in emigration--which has so enormously increased in recent years or in the powerful, defensive Socialist organizations; and curiously enough the government whose want of political foresight was mainly responsible for this state of things, is the one that has suffered most. In fact, while entire Prussian provinces are almost depopulated by ever-increasing emigration, the Socialists, nearly doubling their seats in the last German elections, have become the second party in the Reichstag. It is easy to foresee a time when they will be in an overwhelming majority. Meanwhile, each European unit has to face the fact that the question of Alsace-Lorrain is more likely than any other to create a convulsion which may greatly modify the existing state of things in Europe.

It would be useless, in an article of this kind, to discuss the technical bearings of the military question between Germany and France. As the difference which exists between the material and training of one army and of the other is slight in itself, we may take as conclusive the opinion of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the two armies well balance each other. On the sea the question also remains as the Minister stated. How long it will remain unchanged, must depend on how much each state is disposed to spend on its naval armament, keeping in mind, however, that France, through her far greater national wealth, can the better afford an increased expenditure.

Under these circumstances, in case of a conflict, which side is most likely to win? Leaving aside the sea, the answer to this question may perhaps be found in considering how far the racial requirements of the several combatants are satisfied.

The racial difference between the strong, heavy, flat-footed Teuton, and the rather slight, nervous and elastic Latin, is very marked; and each requires a different treatment to bring out to perfection his combative qualities. With personal courage which may be placed at par with that of the French, the German soldier has a different way of showing it. Less capable of enthusiasm, he loses in a great measure the advantage of those moments of mental excitement produced by a word from his superior, by a popular air, or by the many other means by which men on the battlefield can be hypnotized or can hypnotize each other; moments of actual madness, which make men forget all danger and which give them that irresistible dash which clever condottieri are so careful to excite, and which Napoleon I. himself created and used with such masterly art.

Certainly the slow, I might say cold-blooded, persistency of the Teuton is, in itself, an enormous force; but the time which it takes to act gives a