World's Production of Iron Ore, Coal, Pig Iron and Steel, According to Latest Statistics: Napoleon and Queen

The Spanish war has also resulted in a marvellous extension of our commercial and trade relations, and in the spreading of American civilization.

While civilization is in the abstract utterly opposed to warfare, yet strange as it may seem it has been its great forerunner and promoter. It may be described as the exercise of force in brushing away the impediments which have stopped or retarded the advance of civilized ideas and customs.

Another effect of wars has been to call into action, in all their strength and breadth, the energies and resources of a people, and though at the close of such struggle the country seems prostrated, the latent influences that were evoked have always rendered the work of rehabilitation easy.

A great war also demonstrated to the world the resources of a nation, and after it is over greatly assists in the enlargement of its commercial relations, and in its material progress and prosperity. We all recall the prosperity enjoyed by England during the period following her triumph in her wars with Napoleon. Napier, in his history of the first fifteen years of this century, shows how thoroughly the British people appreciated the fact that their greatness and power were due to the glory achieved by British arms. He says: "Wellington was victorious; the great conqueror (Napoleon) was overthrown; England stood the most triumphant nation of the world, but with an enormous debt, a dissatisfied people, gaining peace without tranquillity, greatness without intrinsic strength, the present time uneasy, the future dark and threatening, yet she rejoices in the glory of her arms, and it is a stirring sound."

The rapidity with which England emerged from this condition of "debt, dissatisfaction and despondency," is an interesting chapter of history. Her commerce followed the flag borne by her navy into all the corners of the earth, her manufacturing industries attained a prosperity never dreamed of, and in a few years England became the wealthiest country on earth, the mistress of the sea and the pride and glory of the world.

The enjoyment of peace is a blessed boon to humanity and all Christian people deprecate war with its train of miseries and suffering, and it is to be earnestly hoped that civilization will soon make war a thing of the past.

The cable tells us that the last request of the great and good Queen to her son and grandson was a pledge upon their knees that the two powerful empires which they rule should always remain at peace with each other, and that their efforts should be exerted to maintain peace throughout the world. If this be true, and I hope and pray that it may be so, the possible effect may be all that the most ardent advocate of universal peace could desire. If these great rulers were to bend their powerful influence in that direction, they could readily count upon being joined in so laudable an effort by both Russia and the United States; and if these four great powers were to combine to attain that end, truly we might hope that the peace and good will on earth prayed for by Jesus of Nazareth nineteen centuries ago was to be the crowning blessing of the twentieth century of the Christian era.

We are informed that Queen Victoria often referred with sorrow to the suffering caused by the war in Cuba, and also by that which so soon followed in South Africa. It was these thoughts which caused the request to her offspring that they would seek to prevent armed contests.

Can we not hope that our blow for mercy and humanity in 1898 may include in its results the bringing about of a condition of universal peace?