do not speak on general grounds applicable to all nations, but on
grounds peculiar to France at the present moment. Emerging from a
most destructive war, she will be subjected to enormous and
unprecedented contributions of every kind. After satisfying
Germany, she will find other obligations at home,--some pressing
directly upon the nation, and others upon individuals. Beyond the
outstanding pay of soldiers, requisitions for supplies, pensions
for the wounded and the families of the dead, and other
extraordinary liabilities accumulating as never before in the same
time, there will be the duty of renewing that internal prosperity
which has received such a shock; and here the work of restoration
will be costly, whether to the nation or the individual. Revenue
must be regained, roads and bridges repaired, markets supplied;
nor can we omit the large and multitudinous losses from ravage of
fields, seizure of stock, suspension of business, stoppage of
manufactures, interference with agriculture, and the whole
terrible drain of war by which the people are impoverished and
disabled. If to the necessary appropriation and expenditure for
all these things is superadded the annual tax of a Standing Army,
and that other draft from the change of producers into non-producers,
plainly here is a supplementary burden of crushing weight.
Talk of the last feather breaking the back of the camel,--
but never was camel loaded down as France.

3. Beyond even these considerations of economy and advantage I put
the transcendent, priceless benefit of Disarmament in the
_assurance of peace_. Disarmament substitutes the constable
for the soldier, and reduces the Standing Army to a police. The
argument assumes, first, the needlessness of a Standing Army, and,
secondly, its evil influence. Both of these points were touched at