The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1916-03-31
What Must Surely Happen In
That Old Country
LOWER LIVING STANDARD
lit Is Impossible TO Calculate
How Much Larger the War
Debt Will Grow
from Fridays palIy.
! CHARLES P. STEWARD UNITED
PRESS CORRESPONDENT

London, March 12.-[By MALL
Europe will have to do one of two
things after the war:
One. Accept a far lower standard
of living than heretofore, or,
Two. Cancel all war debts and
start afresh with a clean slate.
1t is impossible to calculate, for
instance, what England's war debt
alone will be, because nobody knows
how much longer the. war win last.
Certainly, however, the figure will be
so enormous as to stagger the imag-
nation.
Even If the struggle should end
before 1917 the English would have
to pay annually, in interest more
than the total Of their governments
yearly ante bellum expenses!
Taxation was high before the war.
How is the country going to stand
a burden more than twice as heavy?
For one thing, economists say,
production will have to be greatly
increased ~. .-..t~
This, they expect, will be accomp-
lished by the use of improved ma
chinery, by higher degree of eff
cheney than in the past and by the
employment of great numbers of
women who were not industrial fac
tors before the war broke out
These economists themselves, how
ever, do not pretend the difference
will be made up thus. Taxes must be
much heavier to cover the deficit.
The only conclusion is that indus
trial England will be compelled to
work more than twice as hard as
before the war, for less pay.
Possibly because they are them
selves heavy investors in the allies
war loans, the English propertied
classes. even the small fry, gener-
ally strongly oppose wiping out of
the war indebtedness. and insist that
whatever new and, harder conditions
may come, s's1tould> be accepted
cheerfully. - e@y 49aq
/. But will they? Apparently there is
considerable room for doubt
The creditor element, though in
fiuential, is in hopeless minority,
of course. S >
There are plenty of hints that the
majority will not respond enthus-
iastically to the suggestion that the
masses accept, after the war, even
shorter commons than they had to
make. the best of before the wars
outbreak. f6at 'H
1t is fair to say that some enlight-
ened liberals, including a number of
men who have subscribed literally to
the war loans, are disposed at least
to consider the idea of cancelling
these obligations.
They do not use the word "repu-
diation. They say the country's
foreign Indebtedness, which, how
ever, is small compared with what
Englishmen have loaned to their own
government must be paid. But it
may prove expedient, they admit, to
regard loans made to the national
war chest by the English themselves
as contributions from those best
able to afford them.
Some take the position that Eng
lands loans to her allies should
similarly be wiped out.
Adoption of such scheme OBJ
viously would mean the unique sit
uation of a war burden falling on the
rich instead of the poor
At the same time that it would
mean a heavy loss for the CLASSES"
it would also mean a gain for the
masses" levelling-up process his
torically unprecedented
Higher taxes!
Before the war the average Eng
fish skilled workman made from So
to $11 weekly. The corresponding
workman in Germany made from Sc
to 81.
For a man with family it might
seem as if these figures were pretty
near bed rock, that he couldn't re-
duce his standard of living without
starving to death.
AS matter of fact, the workers
in Spain, Portugal, Russia and Tur-
key were not so well off as the Eng
fish and Germans; and a coolies
wages in China amount to about 70
cents American money, for a 7-day
week.
So, after all, there is a good deal
of room for European labor to be
worse off after, than it was before,
the war,
The creditor classes suggestion of
"a lower standard of living" isn't by
any means an impossibility, if the
producing classes will submit to it.
Will they? Nobody knows yet.
In England, land reform appears
to. be certainty.
1t is not contended that the British
Isles would support their popula-
ton, agriculturally, except perhaps
with the closest pinching 1t is
maintained, however, that just dis
tribution of land. would check the
tendency toward such an intense con-
centration in the cities, with its con-
sequent disorganization of the labor
market and frightful conditions of
unemployment which characterized
ante-bellum days.
1t is an old complaint that, with
millions of the English on the verge
of starvation, huge areas of land
have been held as game preserva-
tons and parks, in as primitive a
state of uncultivation as at the time
of the Norman conquest.
Still other vast tracts have been