ts and
tendencies of the less sordid kind. But one inevitable characteristic of
modern war is, that it is associated throughout, in all its particulars,
with a vast and most irregular formation of commercial enterprise. There
is no incentive to Mammon-worship so remarkable as that which it
affords. The political economy of war is now one of its most commanding
aspects. Every farthing, with the smallest exceptions conceivable, of
the scores or hundreds of millions which a war may cost, goes directly
to stimulate production, though it is intended ultimately for waste or
for destruction. Apart from the fact that war destroys every rule of
public thrift, and saps honesty itself in the use of the public treasure
for which it makes such unbounded calls, it therefore is the greatest
feeder of that lust of gold which we are told is the essence of
commerce, though we had hoped it was only its occasional besetting sin.
It is, however, more than this; for the regular commerce of peace is
tameness itself compared with the gambling spirit which war, through the
rapid shiftings and high prices which it brings, always introduces into
trade. In its moral operation it more resembles, perhaps, the finding of
a new gold-field, than anything else. Meantime, as the most wicked
mothers do not kill their offspring from a taste for the practice in the
abstract, but under the pressure of want, and as war always brings home
want to a larger circle of the people than feel it in peace, we ask the
hero of "Maud" to let us know whether war is more likely to reduce or to
multiply the horrors which he denounces? Will more babies be poisoned
amidst comparative ease and plenty, or when, as before the fall of
Napoleon, provisions were twice as dear as they now are, and wages not
much more than half as high? Romans and Carthaginians were pretty much
given to war: but no nations were more sedulous in the cult of Mammon.
Again, the Scriptures are pretty strong against Mammon-worship, but they
do not recommend this original and peculiar cure. Nay, once more: what
sad errors must have crept into the text of the prophet Isaiah when he
is made to desire that our swords shall be converted into ploughshares,
and our spears into pruning-hooks! But we have this solid consolation
after all, that Mr. Tennyson's war poetry is not comparable to his
poetry of peace. Indeed he is not here successful at all: the work, of a
lower order than his, demands the abrupt force and