The expense of defence--the naval and military estimates--vary still more as the danger of attack seems more or less imminent, as the means of retarding such danger become more or less costly.
This statement discusses how defense expenditures vary based on perceived threats and costs.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
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