There have been in all countries many noble exceptions to this point of view, great soldiers who have confessed with General Sherman, that they are "sick and tired of war," its "moonshine" glories and its cruel realities. There are in the service of every great nation generals and admirals whom every lover of peace is proud to honor. But the rank and file are creatures of the system, and as such their influence is felt on the side of war and waste. The advocates of "peace by preponderance," of peace through risk, of peace through assured victory, must be counted on the side of war.
The character of the service journals in every nation shows this to be true. Presumably these periodicals meet the demands made on them, and each and every one, so far as I know, is a purveyor of war scares, an advocate of expenditure, and an agency in behalf of the war system and all of its ramifications.
But the central force of the War System does not lie with the war makers but with the great war traders. We may never underrate a power which has such "big money" behind it. The manufacturers of war implements the world over form, through "interlocking directorates" and through other means, a gigantic coöperating international trust, perhaps the most powerful, because certainly the most profitable, organization of its kind in the world. It is the more efficient and the more dangerous because, alone among great trusts, it has a privileged character as the exponent of the highest patriotism, of the great fundamental duty of "National Defense."
The methods of organization of the syndicates for war, and of their influence on national expenditures, have been lately set forth in detail in two remarkable papers, the one by George Herbert Perris of London, entitled "The War Traders," the other by Francis Delaisi of Paris, entitled "Le Patriotisme des Plaques Blindées," (the Patriotism of Armored Plates).
Mr. Perris tells us of the affairs of the great British companies—the Armstrong-Whitworth Corporation, the Vickers, the John Brown, the Cammell-Laird and the Coventry Arms Company, with their allies, tentacles and satellites feeding the patriotism, under many flags, of nearly half the globe. Delaisi's memoir tells of the Krupps and other concerns in Germany, and of the Creusots and similar armament trusts in France.
The capital invested in all the British firms amounts to about $250,000,000, the dividends ranging each year from 7-1/2% to 15% of the capital stock. In this industry, ten per cent. is a satisfactory return, counting stockholders, employees, soldiers and pensioners. Mr. Perris claims that "it is probable that 1,500,000 adult able-bodied men, one in six of the occupied adult males in the United Kingdom, shares to some extent in the 73,000,000 pounds ($365,000,000) a year which 'National Defense' now costs us." Besides the minor outgoes which form a sort of bribe money to the general public, the distribution of dividends affects a smaller but most influential class. In the share lists of the Armstrong-Whitworth company, Mr. Perris finds the names of 60 noblemen or noble families, 15 baronets, 20 knights, 8 members of parliament, 20 officers of army or navy, and 8 journalists. Shareholding in the war syndicates and membership in the naval league go together. But rich and poor are alike affected by the large returns. "Militarism is strong in England because Lazarus gets some poor pickings from the feast of Dives."
These great companies especially promote the patriotism of Great Britain, but they are controlled by no narrow nativism. Under other flags the same people develop the same noble sentiments. These British corporations, individually or coöperating, maintain three ship building companies in Canada: hence the recent movement for a Canadian navy, to be built in Canadian Yards. They have five tentacles or subsidiary companies in Italy, (Pozzuoli, Ansaldo, Odero, Terni, and Orlando), one in Spain (Ferrol), one in Portugal, and one in Japan. "Time was when Englishmen bled for Portugal; now our old-time ally must bleed for us." The relations of these British trusts with similar groups in other countries are most close and friendly. In the "Harvey United Steel Company" (wound up in 1911), we find them in international combination with the Bethlehem Steel Plant in Pennsylvania, the Creusot company in France, and the Essen and Dillingen concerns in Germany, with a similar international combination of supporting banks. "In forty years," observes Perris, "all the Peace Societies have not succeeded in effecting such a Franco-German reconciliation as this. In the share list (of this company) Mr. Newbold found the names of one British general and two major generals, and behind these were the shadowy figures of a vast host of princes, peers, ministers of the Crown, soldiers, sailors and clerics. A veritable Brotherhood in Arms! I cannot believe that the Harvey United Steel Company is really dead. Somewhere it surely has had a glorious resurrection! Under some metamorphoses it lives and works to prove the pettiness of national prejudice and the ease of forgetting such sores as Alsace-Lorraine, when men have learned the golden wisdom of 'good business.'"
A needed accessory of such good business is a series of commercial agents, "the strong silent men," who frequent every court of Europe. Incidental to their work of making sales, is to create a market. This is done by means of the recurrent war scares. A third element of importance is the reiteration of the constant fact that only the latest inventions can serve in war, and that all former purchases should be "scrapped" as rapidly as possible. Were it not for the scrapping process, the world's market for implements of destruction would be speedily glutted. The machinery of war has reached such marvelous perfection and such an acme of cost that the work of a day may bankrupt a whole nation. The issue of a campaign may be decided by the control of a single murderous invention. Thus science has been called into the service of war, to a degree that inspires the hope that, by carrying its risks to madness, it makes war virtually impossible. But meanwhile the expenses go on.