The Alaska citizen., 1915-10-04
WHAT ANOTHER YEAR OF VAR
 MEANS
Clos Angeles Examiner

The flTst year or the war audeu S1s.575. 200 900 to the public debts of the belligerents- s51 .Sl5.425 was spent every day. s215s.976 every hour. $35.9S3 every minute and $500 every second.
 The rate of expenditure today iS probably nearly S75000. 900 daily. and it is increasing every time the sun rises.
 If the war continues another year he expenditures are likely to be twice those of last year. allowing for the necessity of ever increasing effort and the probability of addi- tional belligerents. That would mean more than fifty billion dollars fot two years warfare The figures are so stupendous that the mind cannot grasp them. The total national debt of the United States. the richest nation in Christendom. is approxi- mately one billion dollars.
 One year of this war has cost more than all the wars of the nine teenth century, The cost of the Napoleonic war was about equa' to the expense of three months Of the present struggle for the mastery of Europe The Russo-Japanese war fund would last only about five week in the present conflict
 The principal belligerents are now offering unlimited loans. That means two things: Every dollar saved by the people will be absorb ed by their government in one way or another, and paper money of all Europe will fall far below it's face value in gold And gold will disap- pear from circulation even in those countries where it has hitherto beer the common medium for making ordinary payments.
 All the central, or official, banks in the warning countries have been utilized for forcing into circulation paper currency in abnormal amounts. The Bank of France records an in crease of fully s1OOO,0O0 900 in it's paper money circulation during the past year, the Reichsbank's Circula- tion has risen more than SSOO,000,- 'nH. while both are apnc7'ing to the public to hand over every piece ,.r ,alI t.,l, nl in n 1 n IT l for paper. The circulation of the Bank of Russia has increased up ward of $1.0OO, 100000 and the Bank of England has attained the same cpd bv advancing hundreds of mil lions in loans on Government paper. by issuing exchequer bills and other methods.
 Compared with the American dol lar, the currencies of European coun- tries have fallen; English, over 2 per cent; French, over 10 per cent; German, over Ii per cent; Italian. over 23 per cent; Austrian, over 25 per cent, and Russian even mere, In other words, gold is already at that much premium in the countries named. and conditions are growing worse.
 How the allies will be able 10 pay for s1,00O,000. 900 worth of Americas new grain and cotton crops in addition to the very much smaller but still stupendous bills being incurred for all kinds of mu- nitions of war remains an unsolved problem. The more European cur ket. the greater the premium that rences fall below gold in our mar as our exporters demand payment, not in depreciated foreign currer. cies, but in our dollars, which are the same as gold. The United States is the only important coule try in the world where gold is not now secreted and hoarded by gov ernment and people.
 In the eyes of international bank CTS Europe is already threatened with bankruptcy. They question whether the war can be financed another full year.
 The kaiser, who revealed true genius before the war, when he was the most active individual, hu- man agent in showing the way in dustrial commercial and maritime de velopment used these significant words recently in his manifesto on the anniversary of the war:
 We suffer and work without way ering until peace cOmes-peace which offers Us the necessary mill tary and political economies for the future.'
 What does this unusual word economics" mean unless it means the hope of relief not only from the measureless sufferings, blood shed and financial losses of tht war, but from the enormous burden incurred in the preparations for this war?