Eureka weekly sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1887-1902, 1901-07-20
WAR EXPENSES
Great Increase In British Public
Debt Has Been Caused.
Enormous Outlay Made Necessary ~
Co~ntfnuatfon of Hestflfties An
south Africa anA No Ia
In sAght.

In the speech of Sir Michael Hicks
Beach, chancellor of the exchequer. in
the house of commons on the occasion
of the introduction of the new budget
there vas not very much that bore
directly on the cost of the war in
South Africa. The tale was told, how
ever, in one clause of one sentence.
The expenditures for the year. he
said had been f1s3. 10000, "of which
Sos. 900 GOO was on account of the war
in South Africa" At the same time he
proposed a oar of & 60, 900 900. made
necessary by the war.
This loan. which is now being sub
scribed, is in addition to the war loan
of 100000, 900 issued in 1900. That
loan represented less than half of the
increase of the British public debt last
year due to the conquest of the Boer
republics. Its total was very near the
e74,000,000 mark, says the New York
Sun.
Since the latter part of the seven
teenth century Great Britain has never
been out of debt. The debt began with
a trifing $4,000, 900, the result of the
revolution which brought the Dutch
King William to the English throne.
From that time it grew and nearly al
ways on account of war.
At the accession of Queen Anne in
1902 the debt was 916,4o0,O 900, and
when the first George became king ~
years later the debt kad been nearly
~quadrupled. He paid OFF a paltry cou-
pie of millions, but George III. saw it
grow to nearly f140, 000, 900.
BY the beginning of the American
war it had been reduced some f1O ,0O0.-
600, but that war sent it climbing to
what at that time was the terrifying
figure of e250, 900, 900. For a few years
there were successful efforts at re-
duction, and a total decrease of anoth-
er 10000, 900 was recorded for the
decade.
Then began the disastrously expen-
sive French war. which with a slight
intermission called peace continued
until the downfall of Napoleon in 1918.
During those % years the debt grew
tremendously, the loans averaging
about 100000 900 a year. In 1916 the
British debt had climbed to the colos-
sal figure Of 200. 436 900. The debt
of no other country, except France,
has reached such proportions.
After the peace of Paris the British
debt took a new our and began to
decrease. This course was followed
staadilu with h,.t MO elicit IN
tions until the outbreak of the war
with the Beers. In 1888 the abolition
of slavery caused a slight increase,
and the Crimean war added about
100000 zoe so that in 1857 the debt
stood at about C S39, 900, 900. In the AZ
years that followed, up to the out
break of the present war, the debt was
reduced on the average $4,000, 900 a
year. In 1899, when the war began, it
had decreased to f635, 0OO, 900.
The war expenses had taken it back
well over G7O0. 000, 900, or more than
three times the net debt of the United
States. and there is as yet no sign that
the war expenses are about to cease or
even to show any material diminution.
Great Britain is now spending approx
imately a million dollars a day on the
war with an army in the field of only
$50, 900 men.
In the civil war, when the federal
armies numbered nearly a million, the
expense was only approximately dou-
BILE what Great Britain is now spend
ing for one-fourth of that strength.
LONDON'S c-OSTRRMONGERS.