The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1914-10-07
Is An Estimate of the
Money Cost
OF THE STRUGGLE IN EUROPE
ARMED Peace" Was Becom.
ing Expensive-N0w the
Cost Is Greater.
COMPARISONS ARE SUGGESTIVE.

Thirty billions of dollars IN one
year is the estimate of the money
cost OF the war offered by Chairman
Gary of the United States Steel Cor
poration. He has seen other esti-
mates and he has put his own high
er than any of them. Fifty millions
of dollars a day. or s1S.O00.000.o0O
year. seems to him much too low.
Let ii be assumed that his figures
are approximately correct.
Armed peace" was expensive. In
% years the great powers of Europe
spent s25. 900. 100000 on their arm
aments. The race" had become so
intense that. in 1919 alone. accord
ing to a French economist. the six
powers in the two alliances spent
$4,000. 900, 900 on their armies and
navies. For 1914-1915. it was esti-
mated that Russia. Germany. France
and England would spend on these
guarantees OF peace a billion and
half.
Comparing the military cost of
peace in Europe with Judge Gary's
esiimato of the military cost of the
war. one finds that in year war
costs about . times as much as
peace This form of calculation
does not consider the indirect and
remOter costs of the present strug-
gle. The question how long Europe
can endure the strain of expenditure
- times greater than the expendi-
ture OF the armed peace. now be-
comes uppermost.
Two of the belligerents, France
and Austria Hungary. showed signs
OF tax exhaustion in the few years
Immediately preceding this conflict.
Even i'm Germany and Great Britain,
the increase in the percentage of eX-
penditure on ornaments since 1875
had exceeded the percentage of in
crease in average incomes. 1t was
only a question of time, as things
we're going. assuming that armed
peace" had been permanent, when
al the powers would have reached
the point of exhaustion. notwith-
standing the annual increase in the
production of wealth. What the
world now witnesses, from the eco
nomic point of view, is the sudden
and violent compression of that pro-
longed financial contest in peace
ornaments into the short period of
year. more or less.
decisive military strokes. the war
becomes one mainly of economic SUI
periority, the period of a year seems
reasonable to accept as the probable
approximate duration of the armed
collision in the present scale of OPP
erations. The British naval esti-)
mates and the British income tax
doubled simultaneously in the IA
years prior to 1910, and the United
Kingdom might have endured to
have had both doubled again in the
text II years. This war is approx
mately costing IL times as much as
the previous armed peace. That is
to say. the British economic strength
to endure another doubling of the
income tax is now being spent in
abOlIf one yaar's tima
Thirty billions of dollars a year
for war! The total amount of the
worlds savings annually invested
in securities had reached about four
u lions. That fact, compared with
the expenditure now going on In Eu-
rope, opens ones eyes to the posi-
BILE economic endurance of the com
batants.
The cost to Europe of the Napo-
leonic wars in lS06-lS0s, according
TO Napoleon's budgets, averaged
about sSS,000,0s0 year. The net
cost of 22-years' fighting against Ma
poleon cost England some four bill
lions of dollars. England could cas-
lily spend that now within two years.
rhe comparisons are suggestive, not
scientific, because the wealth OF
those countries is to-day so much
greater than 100 years ago
Springfield Republican.