The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-01-01
Ruhntond 1ispatrI1.
SATURDAY. JANUARY /, 1870.
What the War Cost.

Mr.. DAVID a. WELLS, in his annual re-
hort, estimates that the late war cost this
country $4,000, 100000, or an amount
equal to two-thirds Of the value Of all the
property in the country in 1860. Well,
peranps it did; but we don't believe it.
MIR. WELLS fails to distinguish between the
Government and the country. He adds
what the war cost The Government to what
il cost the country, and finds the sum total
given above. VIC do not make our calcula-
tons upon such basis. The $4,000
co., in money which the Government
paid out Was paid cut the most of it to our
own people; and SO was only taken out OF
one pocket and put into another, Or, in fact,
out Of the pockets of all our people, and put
into the pockets Of some Of our own people
!, was not annihilated, nor consumed, nor
destroyed in any way. The vastness Of the
amount shows that year after year identi.
ca!ly the same money was used over and
over again. /, costs the proprictors Of the
Dispatch many thousands of dollars per
anrum to carry on their paper; but it
would be IN abuse Of terms to say that it
costs their employees the additional sums
which these cxpund in the course Of year.
Il al the work could be done in this Office
that is to say, if the paper, ink, and all the
other materials used were made in the Of
fee, and 10 money whatever were spent
outside of the huilding-thcn it would
be true that whilst the carrying on Of the
paper would cost the proprietors so many
thousands Of dollars per annum, it would
cost the employees nothing, for these would
receive all the money which those paid out
Vow, the Government answers to the pro-
prictors and the people to the employees.
Therefore, however much money the Gov
crnmcnt expended the people pocketed the
same amount. And go it is nonsense to say
HAT the people have been impoverished to
70 -rcut az extent by the war. They have
los, nucl-millions upon millions Of dol
lara; nut uot all that Mr.. WELLS thinks
they have.
in this country sav fifteen hundred NIL
lions Ct dollars. Snppoer ii wcr" to rcpn-
dat" the debt Ia toto: the country, rs
whole. would he neither the richer nor the
,oorer. The contrary proposition is true
/: the Government pays the whole OF this
debt, the country will be neither the richer
nor the poorer. The country might save
sofncthing by repudiating its European |
debt, ns it lost during the war whatever
rua,s 0! money it expended outside OF the
country for articles which had no intrinsic
value, and which were not to be used to
increase the productions of this country.
whea We undertake to calculate tLsfe-
cuniary coSTQi the war, We must~Tet down
70 much for Property Property, 31-ts-7roycd, az the
slave property was, and as many houses,
barns, horses, mulce, jewels, &c, &c, We're
Ia, VIC should leave out q tic account en-
t:rclv the wealth which We might have ac-
,.umula,cl bat didn't accumulate, az well
~ The article Of money, or currency, which
merely passed from hand 10 hanl, and WAS
neither lost nor destroyed, nor, in fnct, ever
left our own pockets. We had II ali the
time; one or another Of Us. And VIC have
i yet.
'ir. WELIs'S figures sccm more reason
able to us OF The South than they can to
tue rcoplr of the North. We see 70 many
,;,rus Of noycrtv which we know to be con-
telucnt upon the war, that it does not
strike us as strange to hear the cast of the
wal estimated al thousands OF millions OF
dollars. But to the northern people, who
c;nro: but Gee for themselves that they are
infnitely wca!,hier NJ community than
they were before the war, it must sound
strange to hear it said that they have lost
half or two-thirds of their property.