Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1916-01-12
1915 COST OF WAR 28 BILLION,
Colossal Taxation Will Have to BE
Borne When Peace Comes.
Omitted Press.)

New York, Jan. AT the close of
1915 the war had cost more than
twenty-siX billion dollars, exceeding
by five hundred million the total ma
tional debts of the six principal bel
ligerent powers when the conflict be-
gan. With the exception of about five
million raised in the United Kingdom
by taxation, practically all the ex-
penses of the war have been met by
borrowed money. The end of 1915,
therefore, finds the fighting nations
saddled with double the debt they
had accumulated in all the centuries
preceding the outbreak Of the war.
In the early days of the war the
most liberal estimate Of it's cost, in
cluding the destruction of property
and the economic losses caused by
casualties, was fifty million dollars
per day. The actual expense now,
exclusive Of economic and property
losses, is eighty-five million per day.
OF this amount the quadruple entente
is paying two-thirds and the Teutonic
allies one-third. If the war con-
tinues through the winter the cost
will probably rise to a hundred mil
lion per day. The interest for war
loans which the war has already i'm
posed on Europe's future generations
is about billion, two hundred mil
lion per year. Every week the war
lasts fixes an annual interest burden
on the belligerents of twenty-five
million.
Colossal taxation will have to be
imposed on the soldiers when they
return home after peace is declared.
The belligcrents will be bowed be-
meath the burdens of the war debts.
The Germans for time believed it
might be possible for them to evade
the 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 constantly increasing
expenditures, the German govern
ment changed it's mind about the pos
sibility of any belligerent being able
to escape from the financial net. Dr..
!telfferich, therefore, announced a
fortnight ago that although Germany
might collect an indemnity, yet the
war would impose "a colossal bur-
den" of new taxes on the Germans.
During the year various British
statesmen uttered warnings concern
ing the financial outlook. And the
possibility Of bankruptcy ovcrtaking
Europe has several times been men,
toned in the House OF Lords. All
the belligerent governments have be-
come uneasy about the monetary out
look, but the system Of running the
war on borrowed money has prevent
cd the people themselves from feeling
the financial pinch, except in Great
Britain. The British government is
now raising about five hundred mil
lions per year for war costs by direct
taxation; but no other nation has yet
seriously increased it's peace taxes.
The British tax, large as it is, does no
more than meet the interest on the
governments war borrowings.
The war has compelled the rapid
expenditure Of such unprecedented
sums Of money that 1t is difficult to
believe the warning governments will
continue the strain for another year,
unless one side or the other sees the
possibility of complete victory. No
decisive success for anybody Is now in
sight. Even if either group Of bellig-
erents has the power to force the
other into bankruptcy, it is not prob
able that power will be applied. The
injury which would be done to the
most robust Of the warning nations
would not justify the infliction of q
condition Of insolvency upon the
enemy.
France Is leading the other nations
in taking preliminary steps to recover
from the financial blight Of the war.
The northern area Of France, now in
the enemy's possession, Is one OF Eu-
ropes most important manufacturing
centers. The factories will have to
be rebuilt and new machinery must
be installed after peace Is declared.
A French commission IS now in the