| Show FRANCE AND HER COLONIES COIONIES France will doubtless assent to any proposition advanced at the peace congress con-gress to effect a reasonable reduction of armaments in Europe Months ago the French military leaders discovered that they had reached the extreme limit of conscription Then the national Indebtedness has been increasing so rapidly and has attained such enorm ous proportions that retrenchment is absolutely necessary to the life of the republic and in no department can thisbe undertaken with greater satisfaction satis-faction to the masses and with less injury in-jury to the government than In the department de-partment of the army and navy There are reasons however to believe be-lieve that France will be loath to reduce re-duce her navy whatever she may consent con-sent to do with her army for enough of the latter will have to be maintained to make a respectable show at home and to garrison her colonies while I may require all of her navy to look after her foreign possessions France emerged from her last war with England with but a moiety of her former colonial empire But she has burdened her people and almost bankrupted bank-rupted her public treasury by new conquests con-quests The acquisition of Algeria in 1830 and the annexations and protectorates protec-torates of Cochln China Annam Ton quin the Niger and Congo regions Senegal Madagascar and numerous islands and naval stations in both hemispheres which have been effected I in later years make France rank a a i colonial power next after Great Britain The defence of the colonies together with their unavoidable military expeditions expedi-tions and inevitable little wars such as we are having a taste of in the Orient now have resulted in building up a military despotism in France as corrupt as it is inimical to the institutions of a free people The military expeditions in Tonquln Madagascar and Senegal owing to the jealousies and rivalries of the three administrations ad-ministrations the departments of war the navy and the colonies revealed faults in the commissariat transport I equipment and medical services which would have proved fatal had I not been I for the patient endurance of the French common soldier Corruption goes hand in hand with I militarism in France The army has become a great political machine just as Alger and McKinley are trying to make I in this country and scandals are of such frequent occurrence that it is only when high officials are unmercifully un-mercifully persecuted as Dreyfus has been that any attention are paid to them at all When Alger admitted that unwholesome unwhole-some rations had been supplied the army in the war with Spain and asked with unspeakable insolence What of it he gave a fair imitation of what France is with her spirit of imperialism and her army officered by French politicians i poli-ticians I The experiences of Tonquln and Madagascar showed that under the present system the sending of an expeditionary ex-peditionary corps of 15000 men beyond the sea completely dislocated the mechanism of the mobilization plans of the home army To obviate this national na-tional danger a permanent and independent inde-pendent colonial army comprising an effective force of 65000 men and lOS guns has been decided upon by the parliamentry commission whose conclusions con-clusions have always been adopted without question by both branches of the legislature This is a plan that might be adopted by the United states in the Philippines but the question arises dare we trust the Filipinos Are they not as a race at complete variance vari-ance with our American ideas of government gov-ernment of laws of punishment of social life of morals of religious liberty and every thing that the men and women of this republic take especial pride and pleasure In Would there not be an eternal clash of ideas and of authority Are we prepared as a nation with a possible change of administration ad-ministration and national policy every I four years to govern the heterogeneous peoples of a thousand islands half way around the earth from the seat of government gov-ernment While there are many feature of imperialism im-perialism that naturally appeal to vainglorious man these are questions to consider with care before fully endorsing en-dorsing a policy that Involve the suppression sup-pression of piracy in the China sea the extermination of Mahommedans on the Spanish archipelago the extermination extermi-nation of the Tagals and endless insurrections in-surrections and revolutions In another I hemisphere I 1 |
