New-York tribune., 1918-08-18
Allied Powers Of War Endurance
Without Limitations Save Those
Imposed by Unsound Financing
With Americas Resources Conflict Could Be C
On for Centuries Without Danger of Economic Industrial
Exhaustion if the Nation Would Abandon Present
Improvident Methods of Credit Juggery

current income of products, rather
than England's accrued wealth or
foreign credit, have financed its war.
Only to the extent, then, that bonds
have had to be sold abroad or Sc
curities marketed abroad is Eng
land now the poorer for its four
years of stupendous effort. And
even so far as England has been
compelled to sacrifice it's patrimony,
no serious reduction Of wealth has
taken place. AS rapidly as England
has been growing poorer in the
process America has been growing
richer. The aggregate resources Of
the two countries remain substan-
TALLY unimpaired. The war has
been financed out of current in
come on terms of the sacrifices and
privations made necessary in civil
consumption, not in any consider
able part through the deterioration
or the consumption Of the existing
stores of wealth. Taken as a whole,
the Entente has not been nearing
economic exhaustion, is not now
nearing it, never need near it in
the future, and only by gross blum
dering can ever near it.
The fact is that in the large and
in the purely industrial aspect war
has only present tense. Any one
country, it is true, can sell it's pres
ent accumulations Of wealth held
over from the past to the end of
obtaining present increase of war
supplies, or may mortgage abroad
it's future income in order to induce
the assignment of present product
to it. But none the less is it clear
that in the main only present
product can be consur-e ed in the
present. Future bread cannot be
eaten now, or future cannon loaded
now, or future powder exploded
now, any more than future men can
man the trenches now. Nor in the
main can the products of the past
supply the needs of the present.
Few of these products will keep,
and most of them that will keep are
not consumable for war purposes.
We cannot eat or wear or explode
lands, or houses, or factories, or
machines. Most Of these forms Of
wealth avail for present needs, not
as themselves fit for consumption,
but as rendering incomes Of con-
sumable products. For the world
az whole, and especially for a
world at war, the things of the past
equally with the things of the fut-
ure are not at the disposal Of pres
ent. needs. True, some degree of
wear-out or deterioration is possible
but it cannot be allowed to pro-
ceed far and cannot count for much.
Present Income
| All That Counts
So again, country may, in some
slight measure, have prepared for
war by storing war bread or by
making accumulations of armament
and munitions. But these can last
only for the early beginnings. In
the large, it still holds that neither
the products of the past nor the
products of the future but only the
present incomes of product can sup.
port a present war. Society as 8
whole has to live off it's current in.
come.
1t is, in short, a profound mis-.
understanding to suppose that wa,
can destroy much wealth or make
any serious inroads on wealth. II
destroys income-subtracts mer
from current production and abb
serbs in military uses much Of the
current product that else would
serve for civil consumption. Only
in the sense of preventing an in.
crease Of wealth or Of the limited
degree in which it prompts to de.
, terioration or wear-out or tempts te
some degree Of incidental or wantor
ravage can war subtract from tbs
present sum Of human possessions
Its chief significance, clearly, is ir
it's encroachments on present con.
sumption for ordinary needs. The
plivations that war imposes have te
be borne now-present hardship
not past or future hardship. 1t is not
through the lack Of farms or textile
machines that we suffer now, bu,
only through the lack of current
crops against hunger and of curren,
textiles against cold. In truth, the
improvidence of deterioration, ir
whatever degree it is possible anG
is permitted, is in its prompt reac.