ippi valley. By and by, when our shameful tariff--falsely called
"protective"--shall have been done away with, and our manufacturers
shall produce superior articles at less cost of raw material, we shall
begin to compete with European countries in all the markets of the
world; and the competition in manufactures will become as keen as it is
now beginning to be in agriculture. This time will not be long in
coming, for our tariff-system has already begun to be discussed, and in
the light of our present knowledge discussion means its doom. Born of
crass ignorance and self-defeating greed, it cannot bear the light. When
this curse to American labour--scarcely less blighting than the; curse
of negro slavery--shall have been once removed, the economic pressure
exerted upon Europe by the United States will soon become very great
indeed. It will not be long before this economic pressure will make it
simply impossible for the states of Europe to keep up such military
armaments as they are now maintaining. The disparity between the United
States, with a standing army of only twenty-five thousand men withdrawn
from industrial pursuits, and the states of Europe, with their standing
armies amounting to four millions of men, is something that cannot
possibly be kept up. The economic competition will become so keen that
European armies will have to be disbanded, the swords will have to be
turned into ploughshares, and _thus_ the victory of the industrial over
the military type of civilization will at last become complete. But to
disband the great armies of Europe will necessarily involve the forcing
of the great states of Europe into some sort of federal relation, in
which Congresses--already held on rare occasions--will become more
frequent, in which the principles of international law will acquire a
more definite sanction, and in which the combined physical power of all
the states will constitute (as it now does in America) a permanent
threat against any state that dares to wish for selfish reasons to break
the peace. In some such way as this, I believe, the industrial
development of the English race outside of Europe will by and by enforce
federalism upon Europe. As regards the serious difficulties that grow
out of prejudices attendant upon differences in language, race, and
creed, a most valuable lesson is furnished us by the history of
Switzerland. I am inclined to think that the greatest contribution which
Switzerland has made to