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304 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
Military training, however, according to the common
belief in Germany, is also valuable i and the deve!op-
ment by a nation of its Army and Navy need not, con-
sequently, be a pure loss in an economic sense. At
any rate a people which is called on to devote a part
of its energies to making an Army and a Navy may be
asked to consider, before grudging the expenditure,
whether the things that would practically be obtained
if the amount spent were free for other objects would
be so much more valuable to the individuals than the
military training and preparation itself when properly
organized.
Last of all, it is a set-off, so far, to the cost of great
armaments in time of peace that they are an undoubted
insurance against war, with the wholesale expenditure
and loss of life and disease which a state of war brings.
When various great powers are strongly armed, and
none can hope for a speedy victory by surprise, such as
Germany achieved over France in 1870, then peace is
far more likely than if ambition were to be encouraged
by tempting opportunities. In this way we may affirm
that the almost unbroken peace in Europe since 1870
is due to the very armaments in time of peace which
have been so freely condemned. I t would be better, of
course, to have an out-and-out peace instead of an
armed peace which, in some respects, is little better
than a truce, but if a choice must be made, then an
armed peace is better than war, and Europe has been
well repaid for its armaments for many years by the
possession of actual peace.
What the final upshot will be of all these warlike
preparations it would be useless to speculate. One
Government after another may not improbably grow
weary, and the competition will become less keen,
equality and not superiority being aimed at by each
power. On the other hand, it is withiQ the range of
possibility that competition will become so excessive as
to bring out the very mischief of waste of capital
alleged of the system ~s it actually exists. But these