ard
such destructive waste.

In this connection the enormous expenditure in maintenance of standing
armies and navies for the protection of national boundaries is of special
importance. Reduction of this waste of wealth and power should be desired
by every class of society. Though war has been the means by which human
liberty has grown, it has also been the means of crushing it. It would
seem that every incentive is offered each citizen to make an appeal to
arms and the maintenance of armies a most remote necessity. Yet it seems
that the mass of men of every rank are tenacious of national honor. While
most communities have abandoned the duel as both wasteful and immoral in
personal difficulties, the spirit of the duel is still rife in the
differences between nations. A clearer perception of mutual interests in
national welfare will bring nations, like individuals, to accept some
method of enforcing neutral judgment for settling disputes, in place of
war. The farmers of a country, being nearly 50 per cent of its people, and
bearing a large proportion of the expense of armies and wars, have a
tremendous interest in maintaining peace. This can be done not so much by
reducing the provision for armies as by cultivating the spirit of fair
settlement, against the false patriotism which claims everything for one's
own nation.

_False notions of waste._--Wasteful expenditure and luxury and possibly
even vicious indulgence are often excused with the plea that expenditures
of this kind make employment for labor, and so aid the poor. While it is
true that multitudes are employed in catering to the vices of others, all
must grant that the same wealth might be much better employed in other
occupations. More than that, the larger wealth resulting from accumulation
in place of waste would provide capital needed for fuller employment of
all who can work. All imprudent expenditure reduces the power of society
to accumulate wealth for giving occupation to all who will work. Moreover,
such wastefulness creates a tendency toward thriftless character among the
people. The welfare of the whole community depends upon the thrift of the
whole community. The thriftlessness of rich men's sons is more damaging
than the thriftlessness of tramps, because it is more tempting to others.
Any man who lives simply to spend, however busy he keeps himself, is one
of the wasteful ones in the community, unless he has some higher object
than gratifying his de