WHAT is war? I believe that half the people that talk about war have not the slightest idea what it is. In a short sentence it may be summed up to be the combination and concentration of all the horrors, atrocities, crimes, and sufferings of which human nature on this globe is capable. But what is even a rumor of war? Is there anybody here who has anything in the funds, or who is the owner of any railway stock; or anybody who has a large stock of raw material or of manufactured goods? The funds have recently gone down 10 per cent. I do not say that the fall is all on account of this danger of war, but a great proportion of it undoubtedly is. A fall of 10 per cent, in the funds is nearly ￡80,000,000 sterling of value; and railway stock having gone down 20 per cent, makes a difference of ￡60,000,000 in the value of the railway property of this country. Add the two—￡140,000,000—and take the diminished prosperity and value of manufactures of all kinds during the last few months, and you will under-state the actual loss to the country now if you put it down at ￡200,000,000 sterling. But that is merely a rumor of war. That is war a long way off—the small cloud no bigger than a man's hand: what will it be if it comes nearer and becomes a fact? And surely sane men ought to consider whether the case is a good one, the ground fair, the necessity clear, before they drag a nation of nearly thirty millions of people into a long and bloody struggle, for a decrepit and tottering empire, which all the nations in Europe cannot long sustain.