The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-14
AN ECONOMIC VIEW OF
WAR AND ARBITRATION
By John Bates Clark, Professor of
Political Economy at Column
bia University

bia University
1t is a significant fact that the
revered idealist whose presence We
| shall never cease to miss at this con
| ference, DIR. Edward Everett Hale, In
| troduced the first motion which Sc
cured the cooperation of commercial
bodies in the work which the confer
ence is doing. The great idealist ap'
| pealed to a very mundane force
Clearly things economic and things
moral are less widely separated thar
| we sometimes think. If peace die
nothing but add to the comforts which
men enjoy, OF would be an urgent duty
to work for it. By so doing we
should feed the hungry, clothe the
naked and in so far win benedictions
| What I wish to emphasize this morn
ing is that physical comfort is fan
from being all that is gained by avoid
! ing the expense entaiied by war
Economic waste has moral effects;
| they are among it's worst effects, and
| a right use of resources now wasted
| works brilliantly even in the moral
| sphere
! Unnecessary poverty menaces the
(ha"acter It the modern state, and
/ relieving it does, in an indirect way,
a work of collective character build
| ing. Moneys wasted may be counted,
and the immediate expenses which
warfare and the preparation for it en-
| tail on a government may be clearly
perceived, and so can the ravages OF
armies. The pensions that American
| generosity, combined with a system
of vote buying by political parties, en-
| tails after war is over are calcu-
| liable. The losses incurred by a check
| on production are entirely apparent,
| though they can be less accurately
measured. Besides such effects as
4 al yo1r
but real and far reaching. There Is
a bad general working of the produc-
tive organism. There are struggles
of classes entailing bitter enmities
and rendering fainter the hope of hu-
man brotherhood. Through and
through the appeal to reduce such
evils by reducing the economic waste
imperative. The wastes we may
speak of in terms of dollars and
cents, but their effects must be de-
scribed in terms of moral character,
individual and collective. The COM
mands of the Decalogue and the prin-
ciples of the Sermon on the Mount
are authority for the economic re-
spiritual realm when we work for
them. We are seeking for spiritual
gains which are certain to result from
spiked guns and active courts of in
ternational justice.
AS far as the costs of warfare are
concerned the figures are marshalled
in tracts that are abundant and ac-
cessible. Some of them are effective
ly presented in a tract by DR.. True
blood and in the battleship circular of
the New York Peace Society. Fiji
teen billions of lives destroyed with
in the historic period by process that
selects the more vigorous for destruc-
tion and the weaker for survival.
Who can measure that effect? Forty
billions of dollars expended and as
much more lost by checks on produc-
ton; three billions of dollars spent in
our own country for pensions and two
more still to be spent as a result of
wars now past; two hundred mill
lions annually spent on army and
navy by country that has, within
the hemisphere where it is located,
1T; debts that rest crushingly on many
a land and are counted by billions
of dollars:-such figures, as quickly
cited, make no adequate impression on
the mind, but if pondered at leisure,
reveal the dimensions of an evil which
it would not seem possible that civili-
cation should knowingly tolerate.
The most effective mode of partial
1y grasping the effects of such expen-
ditures is to consider what might
otherwise be done with the wasted
resources. What would happen If we
had 100 per cent of the national reve-
nue. instead OF 2S per cent. available
to meet non-military needs? Where
would our country be in point Of we'll
being if we could restore forests, ir-
rigate dry plains, create water powers.
and cross and recross the land with
waterways for heavy traffic? Where
would it be if we could stamp out
tuberculosis, hookworm, cancer and
rabies, and put an end to the intro
duction and spread of plaques, and
where if we could teach useful arts
freely to all who need such instruc-
ton? Even this. however, does not
measure the benefits of avoiding mill
tary expenditure. The effects of it
would extend to still remoter spheres;
and my single purpose today is to
point out, in the briefest way, some.
Of these still less immediate but even
finer effects.
The whole social order is now under
a grave Indictment and the number of
those is growing who believe that
there is only one thing to be done
with it, namely to overthrow 1T alto
gether. This opinion is based on the
fact of hardships that exist and Of
wrongs that exist in part: If we
really thought, as do socialists, that
labor is robbed by employers, that
the robbery results from a funda-
mental law of society," and that it be-
comes worse and worse as society
works out more and more perfectly
it's own nature, we should be certain
to join some party of very radical
reform. Great is the relief from dis
covering thats such robbery as exists
comes by a perversion Of the social
order and is not a natural feature
of it's operation; and even greater is
the relief that comes from knowing
that the perversfon can be largely re-
moved. A belief in the practicable
ity of social reforms makes the diff
ference between a friend and an op-
ponent of the social order. There is,
however, no blinking the fact that the
needed reforms will be difficult and
costly, and it is in this connection that
the inconceivable vastness Of the fig
ures that describe military expendf-
ture is in point. What could be done
that would have ultimate moral eff
fects if we had not such demands to
meet? OF course we could reduce
taxes, beginning with the worst va
riety. The mere abolition of taxes
which select working men for their
victims would do great good. Tax
ing the poor mans bread, his clothes,
his house and his modest comforts is
an unnecessary evil, and removing it
would take not a little bitterness out
of class struggles Monopoly is a
fact of most sinister possibilities pO-
litical and tehical, and it is possible