The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1915-08-24

~ LAAC OA AHOA EAAASAA(As
There have been wars before. This
is world of confagratiOn. Other
wars have affected nations; this is
shaking humanity. There is proba-
bly, not solitary being on this plan
ct today who has not felt directly or
indirectly, for good or evil, in his
own life or person or interests the
gigantic upheaval of the present con-
flict, points out H. S. Brooks in a
most comprehensive article in the
London Mail.
Other wars have been expensive,
but in this one alone has civilization
spent $5O,OOO,OOO to $8O,OOO,OO0 a
day on blowing itself to pieces. 9th
er wars were fought when Industrial
ism was still in it's infancy and before
the railway, the cable, the telegraph,
the steamship and the universal web
of commerce and credit had COM
pressed humanity for thousand pur-
poses into single, sentient and in
terdependent organism. Their eff
fects, therefore, were chiefly local to
the peoples Immediately engaged in
them. The effects of this me are
worldwide. Other wars brought in
their train a limited disturbance and
disorganization where this one brings
a universal cataclysm.
Involves Half The People.
Fully half the entire population of
the world and all but three-fifths of
it's total land surface are at this mo-
ment to be classed as belligerent. In
Europe, of course, the proportion is
much larger. Out of every seven
square miles of European soil the
warning powers own five; out of ev-
cry dozen persons 10 are their sub
iects. More than 100000, 900 peo-
pie in Europe, occupying roughly
100000 square miles of territory,
are at war. Fewer than 60,OOO,OOO
are at peace.
But even this percentage, grotesque
as it is, is exceeded in the case OF
Africa. If we include Morocco IN
the French possessions the only neu-
trail states in that vast continent are
the kingdom of Abysinnia, the Span
ish colonies and the republic of Lii
IBERIA, and they cover barely one
twentieth of the whole area and con-
tain less than a 18th of its inhabi-
tants.
In Asia all but half the population
u and more than half of the territory
are embraced by the struggle. In
North America above the Rio Grande
slightly more than half the area and
about a 18th of the population owe
allegiance to one of the belligerent
nations. South America alone shows
a genuine surplus of neutrality. On
ly about one-ffty-sixth of its surface
and considerably less than one pei
cent of it's people come within the
category of combatants.
1t would be useless to attempt tC
compute the financial or commerce.
resources that the powers are thus
suuandering on their mutual destruc'
tion-useIess because the figures
would pass at 1nco Into merely
meaningless immensely. 1t conveys
nothing to be told that the govern
ments of the belligerent states were
raising in the year before the wal
about a thousand and half millions
of revenue or that the annual Ior-
eign trade of their peoples, which was
of course but a fraction of their total
,buying and selling, ran into the
neighborhood of five thousand MIL
lions. Such sums defy vital compre-
hension. -,
In Joint of the actual area. how
ever over which the fighting has tax
en- place the present struggle mas no no
vet reached a wider compass imam tnt
seven years war or the Napoieonil
wars. For all that, it is sufIclentlS
diffused.
It's guns have been heard on every
ocean from the North sea to the Bay
of Bengal. among the bean telds OF
Shantung, in the ISLANDS VI Inc
cific. off the Gillian coast and tne
Falkland islands, on the banks OF the
Nile, at the head of the Persian gun
along the courses of the Tigrls ana
Euphrates, amid the wastes OF Sout1
Africa. the oil 2palms Of Togolaho
and the Cameroons, the uplands OF
East Africa, in the Caucasus ana cne
italian Alps, in the Dardanelles ano
SYRIA and across the Persian IRON
tier. round the east coast OF Britain
and over the heart of Europe from
Paris to Warsaw, from Switzerland
| to the sea, from the Danube 10 tne
Adding it altogether one finds that
some 90,0O0,O90 square miles, anu