Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-09-28
The Cost of Modern War.

is bankrupting Europe In property ana
citizenship, we may then begin to put
the money cost Of war into figures.
Ebert Hubbard says Every farmer
Gin Germany between IA and 60 years
of age has been drafted into the
ranks to be food for vuitures. Every
horse that could carry man or draw
a load has been seized. All beef cat
tie have been appropriated. Every
penny in every savings-bank IN Ger
many has been levied upon, and re
ceipt" given to the starving holder.
This loss of a life times savings
means death to multitudes of old peo-
ME TO widows, children, invalids and
cripples. The money man might
have left to care for his widow Or
phans, aged parents, is swept away IN
the maelstrom of blood. Old-age pen
sions. sick benefits, and life insurance
are only dreams"
All this is only one small paragraph
in the great and awful indictment
against the heads of nations. Your
widest conceptions of the horrors Oh
war or the terrors of hell are not bad
enough to picture actual conditions
in European battlefields today. And We
try to figure the cost" of it. An ex-
pert on the Springfield Republican has
reduced it to understandable phrases
as follows:
Thirty billionsSof dollars in one year
Is the estimate of the money cost of
the war offered by Chairman Gary OF
the United States Steel Corporation.
He has seen other estimates and he'
has put his own higher than any OF
them. Fifty millions of dollars day,
or $4,000, 100000 a year, seems TO him
much too low Let it be assumed that
his figures are approximately correct.
The armed peace" was expensive.
In twenty-five years the great Powers
of Europe spent $4,000. 100000 on
their ornaments. The race" had De-
come so intense that in 1913 alone, ac-
cording to French economist, the
six Powers in the two alliances spent
$4,000. 900. 600 on their armies and ma
vies. For 1914-1915, it was estimated
that Russia, Germany, France and
England would spend on these guar
antics of peace" a billion and a half.
Comparing the military cost of
peace in Europe with Judge Gary's
estimate of the military cost of the
war one finds that in year war costs
about fifteen times as much as peace.
This form of calculation does not con-
slider the indirect and remoter costs
of the present struggle. The question
how long Europe can endure the strain
Of expenditure fifteen times greater
than the expenditure of the armed
peace now becomes uppermost.
Two of the belligerents, France and
Austria Hungary, showed signs of tax
exhaustion IN the few years immedi-
ately preceding this conflict. Even in
Germany and Great Britain the in
erase in the percentage of expenditure
on ornaments since 1875 had exceeded
the percentage of increase in average
incomes. 1t was only a question OF
time, as things were going, assuming
that armed peace had been perma-
nent, when all the Powers would have
reached the point of exhaustion, not
withstanding 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 prolonged
financial contest in peace ornaments
into the short period of a year, more
or less.
Assuming that, in the absence of de-
cisive military strokes, the war be-
comes one mainly of economic superb
GRITTY, the period of a year seems rea-
sonable to accept as the probable ap-
proximate duration of the armed col
lsion on the present scale of opera
tions. The British naval estimates
and the British income tax doubled
simultaneously in the fourteen years
prior to 1910, and the United King
dom might have endured to have had
both doubled again in the next four
teen years. This war is approximately
costing fifteen timees as much as the
previous armed peace. That is to say
the British economic strength to en-
dure another doubling of the income
tax is now being spent in about one
years time.
Thirty billions of dollars year for
war! The total amount of the worlds
savings annually invested in seeuri-
ties had reached about four billions.
That fact, compared with the expendi-
ture now going on in Europe opens
ones eyes to the possible economic
endurance of the combatants
The cost to Europe of the Napoleon
&c wars in 1S06-18Os, according to Ma
poleon's budgets, averaged about $685.
10000 a year. The net cost of TWEEN
ty-two years fighting against Napo-
leon cost England some four billions
Of dollars, England could easily spend
that now within two years The com
parsons are suggestive not scientific.
because the wealth of those countries
is today so much greater than one
hundred years ago.
But no possible doubt exists that.
with the much greater facilities in
these days for the swift modelling of
q eountry's economic strength for war.
as well as its military strength. the
cost of campaigns has been enormous
ly increased relatively as well as abso-