Heretofore the cry of international arbitration has come mainly from those who were moved by the idea of philanthropy, of mercy and of humanity. It will not be long until these influences will be joined by all the commercial interests of civilization and all the tax-payers of the world. For the fiscal year (1907) in our own country there was appropriated from the national treasury nearly four hundred millions of dollars on account of war. Over sixty-five per cent. of the revenues of our national government are spent on account of our wars of the past, or in preparation for war in the future. Every time our government raises a dollar by taxation more than sixty-five cents of it is demanded as a tribute by this blood thirsty demon. Our situation is only a fair illustration of what exists everywhere in the world. In round numbers about one-half of the money raised by taxation in the leading civilized nations of the world is spent, either in the payment of obligations of past wars, or in the preparation for war in the future. The expense of this preparation is increasing at a wonderful rate. Our government expends about the same amount of money as the other leading nations of the world in the preparation for war in the future, but for the expenses of wars that are past it expends more than all the other nations combined. The expenses of our past wars, consisting chiefly and mainly of pensions, are just, and no one would cut them down, excepting as they will be curtailed by the hand of Time as he gathers into his fold our heroes of the past. We will therefore eliminate the past from the financial consideration of the question. During a single year of peace, Great Britain, Germany, France, and the United States spent nearly one billion of dollars in making preparation for war. All the money in the United States would only pay this enormous expense for a little more than two years. The people of these highly civilized countries, while in profound peace, were taxing themselves to death, in order that the survivors might kill each other according to the most modern methods of modern warfare with the most modern weapons of human destruction.