The Coconino sun., 1901-03-09
AN EXPENSIVE WAR.
Direct Cost of the South African
 Struggle to England.
Ths Ultimate Outlay in Trying te Overcome the BOers Will Amount to . Mountain
 of Money.

The cost or the south African war has now so greatly exceeded the orig inal estimates that practically no one in authority in England seems able to make definite calculation of what t it may ultimately amount to. The borrowing powers granted to the British government by the late par liament are nearly exhausted, and heavy arrears, amounting to between $2o0.OO0,OOO and $25O,OOG ,OOO, are press ing for payment. Against these lia- bilities the government has about $76,O00,OOO immediately available, the unexhausted borrowing power amounting to $3O,000,O ,O0O and the bal ance of loans issued yet, to be paid up si5,OO0,O0O. Of the payments in arrears much consists of the pay due the army and debts to contractors.
 The indirect cost has been esti- mated, and the result is highly inter- esting, says the New York Sun. In September last the shrinkage in value of the full list of securities quoted on the London stock exchange had, as a direct consequence of the war, reached the enormous figure of nearly $2,500.O 100000. The decline in the mar ket value of consols alone has been serious. and the fall has been equally marked in municipal stocks and rail- way and other obligations. The in- crease to the national deot with the additional taxation to meet the in- terest payments has also to be taken into account. Then there is the ex- pense of the permanent garrison. esti- mated at 50,OOO men, which will have to be kept up for an undetermined pe- riod out of the pocket of the British taxpayer, for there is no present vis- ible source of revenue in South Africa from which the cost can be paid.
 But the matter does not end here. The increase and the reorganization of the army have to be provided for, and millions will have to be spent in bringing the stores of ammunition and other war material up to the re- quirements of the new policy. A. ready orders for S30,O00,OOO worth of new guns have been placed, to be fol- lowed by others the amount of which has not yet been decide, on.
 It is not, however, in England only that the direct cost of the war is making itself felt by the taxpayers. The shortage of revenue in Cape Col ony this year is estimated by the min ister of finance at not less than S12,- 9l5,OO0, which he proposes to borrow, though the reception which a pro- posal to raise small loan in the Lon don market a few months ago met with does not seem to encourage fresh applications in the same quarter. In the nature of things it will be some years before the waste and destruc- tion worked by the war have been made good, and meantime the course of trade which in the past was favor able to Cape Colony will take other channels. Durban, in. Natal, and Lorenzo Marques are so much nearer to Bloemfontein and Pretoria than Cape Town that supplies and traffic may be expected to take the shorter routes. This will affect the revenues of Cape Colony derivable from the railways.
 No boom is to be looked for after the war is oven, the sacrifices made by the Cape farmers or imposed on them having been too great to permit their launching out into extravagances of any kind for long time to come. The reduction of the imperial expen- diture consequent on the withdrawal from the country of the great portion of the British army will cause a sud- den reduction in the trade depending on it and bring about a great curtail- ment of the profits of those engaged in it and on which they depend for