The Wahpeton times. [volume] (Wahpeton, Richland County, Dakota [N.D.]) 1879-1919, 1915-04-29
TilE Cash oosr OF WAR

slty).
This war began, according to
Professor Ricketts, calculation. at
a cost of $50,00O,o0O per day.
Ricketts, calculation in 1912
was an underestimate as to ex-
penses on the sea and in the air.
These with the growing scarcity
Of bread and shrapnel, the equip
ment of automobiles, and the UNI
paralleled ruin of cities have rails
ed this cost to S7O,OOO,OO) per
day.
This again takes no count of
the waste of men and horses, less
costly than the other material of
war and not necessarily to be re-
placed. All this is piled ON top of
1.-THE endless caravan of ciphers. {"
1921, O0O,O)0,OOO) which repre-
sented the accumulated and un-
paid war debt of the Nineteenth
century.
Yves Guyot, the French Econo-
mist, estimates that the first six
months of war cost Western Eur
ope in cash SIS, 4OO,OOO,OoO, to
which should be added further
destruction estimated at $ll, $780,
OO0 200, making a total of H.
O00,000,000. Edgar Crammond of
London, another high authority,
estimates the cash cost of a year
of war, to August 1, 1915, at ST.
00,O00,00o, while other lasses
will mount up to make a grand
total Of $4,000, 900. Mr.. Cram
mond estimates that the cost to
Great Britain for a year of war
will reach $3,5OO,OOO,OOO. This
sum is about equivalent to the
accumulated war debt of Great
Britain for hundred years before
the war. The war debt of Ger
many (including Prussia) and al
SO that of Austria before the war.
was about the same.
No one can have any concep-
ton of what $46,0OO,OO may be-.
1t is four times ali the coin in the
world. If this sum were measured
out in $50 gold pieces and they
We're placed side by side on the
railway train, on each rail, they
would line with gold every line
from New York to the Pacific
Ocean, the two Canadian lines in
cluded. There would be enough
left to cover each rail of the ST.
beman railway from Vladivostok
to Petrograd. There would still
remain sufficient to rehabiliate
Belgium and to buy the whole of
Turkey, at her own valuation,
wipmg her finally from the map.
Or we may figure in some other
fashion. The average working
man in America earns 1918 per
year. 1t would take 10000, 900
years work to pay the cost of the
war; or 9O,0JO,OOO American lab
orers might pay it off in one year,
ii all his living expenses were
paid.
The cost of year of the Great
War is a little more than the es-
timated value of all the property
OF the United States west of the
Mississippi river. 1t is nearly
equal to the total value of all the
property in Germany ($48,OOO,-
O00,0Oo) as estimated in 1906.
The whole Russian Empire $685.
600, OOo,0OO) could have been
bought for less sum before the
war. began. 1t could be had, on a
cash sale, more cheaply now. This
sum would have paid for all The
property in Italy. (si3,)O0, 0OO,-
A COG? Japan 10 billion; Holland 5
DILLON; Belgium billion; Spain
10 billion and Portugal 2 l-2 bill
lions. 1t is three times the entire
D yearly earning in wages and SAL
aries of the people of the United
i State (S15,5OO, 900, OoO).
4 Taking the net profits of over
seas trade as stated by the Ham
Duig-American Company, a year
ago, the strongest in the world
and estimating the rest, we have
something like this: During the
DRY War" the net earnings Of
the German Mercantile fleet were
about one-third the cost of the
navy supposed to protect it. II
would take seventy years of trade
on the scale of the last year be-
fore the war, to repay Germany
expenses for year of war. Tc
make good all the war losses OF
Europe would require about l5l
years of the overseas tradina
profits of the world. War is
therefore death to trade, and the
commerce of the world is one OF
the main agencies of civilization
The cost of this war would pa,
the national debts of all the ma.
tions in the world at the time the
war broke out, and this aggregate
sum of $45,OOO,)OO,OOO for the
world was all accumulated in the
criminal stupidity of the wars OF
the Nineteenth Century. If all tn.
farms, farming lands, and facto.
ries of the United States were
wiped out of existence, the cost Of
this war would more than replace
them. If all the personal and -rea
property Of half our nation were
destroyed, or if an earthquake OF
SEin0podikHo dio,oy,o;o-,, ,