Army and navy 3,000 3,000 4,500 6,725 National debts 66,000 75,000 117,000 148,000 Interest 2,400 3,000 5,300 6,000[188] As shown by this list, Europe spends 6,725 million francs ($1,362,000,000) annually for armies and navies, and 6,000 million francs ($1,215,000,000) interest on debts that have mostly been incurred to serve warlike purposes. A fine state of affairs, indeed! America and Asia have begun to follow the example set by Europe. The United States spent $967,000,000 in 1875, and $3,592,250,000 in 1907 and 1908. In Japan the expenses for army and navy, including the pensions, amounted to $51,250,000 in 1875 and to $551,000,000 in 1908 and 1909. As a result of these expenses objects of education and civilization are grievously neglected. The expenses for external defense predominate and undermine the true purpose of the state. The growing armies comprise the healthiest and strongest elements of the nation, and for their education and training all physical and mental forces are employed, as if training for wholesale murder were the most important mission of our age. At the same time the tools of warfare and murder are constantly being improved. They have attained such a degree of perfection in regard to speed, range, and force of destruction, that they have become a terror alike to friend and foe. If this tremendous apparatus should be set in motion--which would imply that the warring European forces would take the field with from 16 to 20 million men--it would be seen that it has become ~uncontrollable~ and ~indirigible~. No general can command such masses; no battlefield is large enough to draw them up; no administration can provide for their maintenance during any length of time. In case a battle had taken place there would not be sufficient hospitals to care for the wounded, and to bury the dead would become almost impossible. If we furthermore take into consideration what disturbances and devastations would be wrought by a European war on the field of economics, we may say, without fear of exaggeration: ~The next war will be the last war.~ The number of failures in business would exceed all previous records. The export trade would come to a standstill and thousands of factories would accordingly be forced to shut down. The supply of provisions would run short, whereby the cost of living would be enormously increased. It would require millions of dollars to support the families whose bread-winners had gone to war. But whence should come the means to meet all these prodigious expenses? At present the German empire alone spends from eleven to twelve million dollars daily to maintain its army and navy in readiness for war.