The Portland daily press., 1900-05-17
MONEY MADE
In MANY WARS.
Conflicts Have Not Always Been
Expensive LuxuIies for tie
VictOrS,

Il
an expensive luxury, that II is so costly
an experiment that nations hesitate to
engage in it for monetary if for no other
reasons, and that many difficulty will
be automatically arranged to avoid the
possibility OF the enormous expenditure
that armed conflict would necessitate.
In spite OF popular opinion, however,
history proves conclusively that il is
| foreign to fact, and that while war is
costly enough to those who are van
| quished. there can be no question that
il Is one of the finest methods OF national
money making. providing it is waged
| successfully.
Such an historic review Is particularly
! interesting at this time, in view OF the
fact that Great Britain has been called
upon to make the most enormous nppro-
! priations for the purpose of carrying on
the war in South Africa, and yet, in
! spite of the immensely OF these figures,
there IL reason to believe that the Eng
lish Government would be able to end
the war with a profit to itself providing
the Beers can be defeated within a COM
paratively short time.
| There have been many wars between
the nations of the world during the past
thirty years, and in nearly every instance
| the victorious nation has been able at
the close to regard its bank account with
Il considerable degree of complacency,
and there is more than one of the power
full diplomats of Europe who would
agree in the assertion that there are
many things in this world that are worse
than war.
or course. if the campaign that Is
being waged is long and arduous, there
is possibility that the vanquished ma
ton may sink to such an impoverished
condition that it is impossible to realize
profit from the conflict, aud yet these
instances have been SO few within the
memory of the present generation att
least that il is difficult to understand the
argument on which the current opinion
| is based.
WHAT WAR COSTS.
At the present time il would be some
what difficult for the United States au-
thorities to tell just how this nation
stands in relation to its war with Spain
Ii the fighting had ended with the sign
| ing of the peace treaty, the United
| States would have had a large sum OF
money on the right side of the books,
but the long-drawn-out campaign in the
Philippines. which can only be regarded
as part and parcel with our Spanish
war, has drawn heavily against our IA
yorable balance.
| In all the conflicts that England has
waged, howver, the profit has been quite
| n considerable item. In her war with
| China, more than half century ago.
there was profit of more than $4,000
| 600 to show for the three years fighting,
! and this was a particularly excellent
percentage when one considers that the
| original expenditure of Great Britain
| only came to little over $11 900, 900.
1t was at about this time that England
learned how to wage war successfully,
and since that day there have been few
battles fought by the soldiers of the
Queen that have not been made to pay
the nation well.
In the recent war between Turkey and
Greece the result was most satisfactory
to the former from "A financial point of
view, and Japan made an exceedingly
fine thing out of her last misunderstand-
ing with China. In that war, which was
managed extremely well, Japan had only
$4,000 men engaged, so that the cost to
her altogether did not exceed the COM
paratiye trifie of S30,000,000. China, ON
the other hand, was compelled to pay her
the neat little sum of $1S5, 000, 600 leav-
ing clear profit of $155, 900, 900, which,
reckoning the time the war lasted,
worked out a profit of $50 week
per soldier.
] THRIFTY GERMANY.
/ Remarkable as this achievement was
however, other nations have done fully
| as well. Germany, for instance, is the
admiration of financiers, owing to the
manner in which she has run her wars
| and the comfortable little balance that
| she has managed to make out of them.
| Her famous war with France in 1870
| is one that ministers Of finance dream
| about, as it is regarded as one of the
most wonderfully successful conflicts of
modern times. Speaking roughly, this
war cost Germany about $575.00O,OOO.
| The Government voted S300.000,000 of
| this for expenses, and the pensions that
she was compelled to pay afterwards to
her disabled soldiers amounted to about
$25, 100000.
To these items has to be added one of
$3.50, 600 900 as the loss sustained by her
owing to the fact that million soldiers
| knb THAR