The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-01-08
1915 AN EPOCH
YEAR IN WORLDS
PURSE AFFAIRS
War Drain Threatens Nations
of Europe With Bankruptcy.
Total Debt of Belligerents Ex-
ceeds 26 Billion Dollars.
GREAT PROSPERITY IN U. S.
Every Branch of American
Business Had Great Year.
War Brides and Babies Made
Many MiIIiOnaireS.
GREAT PROSPERITY IN U. S.
Every Branch of American
Business Had Great Year.
War Brides and Babies Made
Many MiIIiOnaires.
BY J. w. S. MASON.

New York, Jan. Sat the close of
1915 the war has cost more than 20
billion dollars, exceeding by five mill
lion the total national debts of the
six principal belligerent powers when
the conflict began. With the excep-
ton of about five million raised in the
United Kingdom by taxation, practi-
cally all the, expenses of the war have
been met by borrowed money. The
end of 1915, therefore, finds the fight
ing nations saddled with double the
debt they Fad accumulated in all the
centuries preceding the outbreak of
the wa.
In the early days of the war the
most liberal estimate of it's cost, in
cludin% the destruction of property
and the economic losses caused by
casualties, was fifty million dollars
per da--. The actual expense now, eX-
elusive of economic and property
losses, is So million per day. OF this
amount the quadruple entente is pay
ing two-thirds and the Teutonic allies
one-third.
If the war continues through the
winter the cost will probably rise to
a hundred million per day. The in
terest for war loans which the war
has already imposed on Europe's fu-
ture gene rations is about a billion,
200 million per year. Every week the
war lasts fixes an additional annual
interest burden on the belligerents of
20 million.
Colossal Taxes.
Colossal taxation will have to be
imposed on the soldiers when they
return home after peace is declared.
The belligerents viii be bowed be-
meath the burdens of the war debts.
- hi ha-
lleved it might be possible for them
TO evade their cost of the conflict by
compelling the quadruple entente
powers to pay a full indemnity. DR..
Helfferich, the German minister of
finance, made this statement in the
reichstag last August. But as the
years fighting continued with con-
stantly increasing expenditures, the
German government changed its mind
about the possibility of any belliger-
ent being able to escape from the
financial net. DIR. Helfferich, therefore.
announced a fortnight ago that al
though Germany might collect an in
demnity, yet the war would impose "a
colossal burden" of new taxes on the
Germans.
During the year, various British
statesmen uttered warnings concern
ing the financial outlook. And the
possibility of bankruptcy overtaking
Europe has several times been men
toned il the house of lords. All the
belligerent governments have become
uneasy about the monetary outlook,
but the system of running the war on
borrowed money has prevented the
people themselves from feeling the
financial pinch. except in Great
Britain. The British government is
now raising about 500 million per year
for war costs by direct taxation; but
no other nation has as yet seriously
increased its peace taxes. The Brit
ish tax, large as it is. does no more