With such conditions, can we hope for good sense among millions of men when but a handful of their officers remain? Will the armies of Western Europe, where the socialist propaganda has already spread among the masses, allow themselves to be disarmed; and, if not, must we not expect even greater disasters than those which marked the short-lived triumph of the Paris Commune? The longer the present position of affairs continues, the greater is the probability of such convulsions after the close of a great war. Thus, with the growth of military burdens rise waves of popular discontent, threatening a social revolution. Such are the consequences of the armed peace of Europe--slow destruction in consequence of expenditure on preparations for war, or swift destruction in the event of war--in both events convulsions in the social order. EDMUND BURKE Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke, born on Jan. 12, 1729, at Dublin, Ireland, was educated at Trinity College there, and proceeded in 1750 to the Middle Temple, London, but forsook law for the pursuit of literature and politics. His earliest serious work was the essay on "The Sublime and Beautiful," published in 1756, of which the full title is "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful." In 1761 he became private secretary to Hamilton, the Secretary of Ireland, and four years later to the Premier, the Marquis of Rockingham, when he also became M.P. for Wendover, and, in 1774, for Bristol. He died on July 9, 1797. Burke's magnificent treatise on the French Revolution, of which the full title is "Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings of Certain Societies in London relative to that Event; In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris," was published in 1790, and was read all over Europe, powerfully encouraging strenuous resistance to the Revolution. It is, perhaps, in all literature, the noblest expression of all that is noble in conservatism. His treatise is as profound in its penetration into political principles as it is magnificent in conception and in language. As Burke had stood for a true liberty in America, so he took his stand against a false liberty in Europe. But history has not justified him so completely in the latter case as in the former. Revolutionism was not only, or chiefly, libertinism; and the wonderful modern France has largely disappointed his predictions. _I.--The Meaning of Freedom_