The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-05-24
The Cost OF War, and the Resources Of
the Two sections.

The Cost Of War, and the Resources Of
the Two Sections.
The enormous expenses of war are but
family realized by the people. The con-
slant, exhausting drain of men, and of money
required to support them, and furnish mu.
nitions, sums up each year an aggregate
which is appalling. The Boston Post has
an elaborate article on this subject, and on
the comparative strength and resources of
the North and South, which, as it is based
on facts, and not on mere assertions, we
think worthy of condensation and repro
duction.
An examination of the records of the
British war Office shows, that, in times of
peace, the cost of each soldier to the gov
eminent has been from $3.50 to $3.50 per
annum. During the Crimean war, the
cost per annum for each man was $40. In
1866, covering one year of the Crimean
war, Great Britain had 285, GAL men, which
was at the rate of one soldier to each 108
of the population Of the Empire. To raise
this number of men, and furnish the money
required, stretched the resources of that
country to their utmost tension. She
drained her own population, and made levies
upon her Canadian Colonies, to raise this
vast force and she taxed, and retaxed, un-
til her Golfers cried out against the drain, to
pay the cost and even then, she could not
pay up into more than $45,00OO00 each
year, and added that amount to her funded
debt, to be liquidated out of her resources
in the future. The average cost Of the army
and navy of Great Britain, during the three
years of the Crimean war, was $6.25 to
each person of her population, every year.
The army of Great Britain, during the
Crimean war, comprised the largest body Of
men she has ever been able to put in the
field and this was at the ratio, as we have
stated, of one soldier to each l08 of her
entire population. Other nations have, on
emergencies, increased this ratio. Prussia
has sustained one soldier to 48 of her popu.
lation Russia, one to 80; and some of the
other continental powers have sustained
proportion of soldiers to population between
these extremes. 1t is dealing generously
with the South to apply the figures of
Great Britain to her case. Great Britain
is rich, and has the great advantage of
diversity of neutrality-suspicious., mining,
manufacturing, land and sea commerce
while the energies and resources of the
South are directed to, and limited by, the
single pursuit of agriculture. She cannot
hope, therefore, to do better than Great
Britain, in proportion to her population
nor 80 well, because nearly one half of the
South is slave, and cannot take arms, but
must compose the labor reserve, and be
guarded, at that, by portion of the free
white population.
But, putting all the slave States on an
equality with the British Empire, and giving
the North no better basis, we find that, in
the proportion of one soldier to lob of popu-
lation, all the South can raise is an army of
HILL men, at an annual cost of $50, 337,-
$40; while the North, on the same basis,
can raise 175,525, at an annual cost of
$l47,777,9OO. On the basis of one soldier
to 10 of the population, the South might
have an army of III, 42S, at an annual cost
of $l42, $50; while the army of the
North would be 272 1855, at an annual cost
of 1929 1853 200. These are the burdens of
men and money which would fall on the two
sections, if drafted on the bases we have
mentioned.
Which section has the better chance of
meeting such acquisitions of men and trea-
sure? The commerce of the South will
soon be utterly destroyed-her agriculture
does not furnish her people food, and she
has no such diversity of pursuits as to render
her self-sustaining, even in times of peace,
when her intercourse with the North and
the commercial nations of the world shall
be cut off. On the other hand, the North
has greater wealth than her excess of pop
ulation would indicate she controls the
navy and the commerce of the whole coun-
try, as we'll as its manufactures, and all
that is of great account in its mining
wealth. The North has also population
more densely settled and can better stand
the drain of men and then, she has no
servile population to be guarded, is not
troubled, and will not be unnerved, by
haunting shadows of insurrectionary fears.