The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-12-03
THE DEBT TO ENGLAND.
What She Has Done for Civilization

England viii fight on until the last
Hun is subdued and the Hohenzollerns
have been overthrow is the statement
of f. ID. l.. Smith, editor of The To
rento Daily News. recently back from
the war zone. Mr.. Smith maintains
that England has and still is bearing
the biggest part of the war burden, and
that but for the Grand Fleet Germany
would have triumphed in the first few
months and have made secure the world
domination which the kaiser had
dreamed was his.
After four years of a continuous ex-,
hausting war he says, "Great Brit
ain maintains in the field larger ar.
nv than that furnished by any of her
allies. Anyone who visits the western
front at the beginning Of tie fifth year
Of the war must be impressed with the
extent to which Northwestern France
has become British country. Eng
lish sentries mount guard in the towns
of Calais and Boulogne and along the
country roads far to the south and
east British troops are everywhere.
Even in Roucn and cities further south
the British kahki is more common than
the blue of France. British airplanes,
British ammunition dumps, British
transports, British hospitals, line the
roads and occupy the fields of France
from the coast clear through to a line
drawn north and south through Paris
Not only this. British armies 'also
uphold the allied cause in half score
other vital theatres of warm Siberia,
/ IN, ,oto Of Doly no M,r
man coast, on the Dvina River, in
German East Africa, Albania, Pales-
tine, Italy and Saloniki.
The British people have borne pa
tiently, with unequaled determination,
| the burden of two vast wars, the one
at sea and the other in many widely
separated theatres on land. Since the
| beginning of the war 100 enemy sub
marines have been sunk, most of them
| by the British. One and half million
men arc occupied today in manning
and maintaining the British Navy and
| Merchant Marine. Britain has lost 3,
| Sl7, 900 tons of her precious shipping.
! The other allies and neutrals have
| gained l.20s,000 tons. She cannot re-
place her tonnage sunk for two reasons
most, not for her own interests, but in
the common cause. In her shipbuild-
ing yards two ffths of the labor and
machinery are required for repair work
done rs much for her allies as for her.
self. Yet in four years by an almost
| Superhuman effort she has Increased
the strength of her navy by 30 per cent
This means that in spite of all other
lcalis She has, during four wears of wal
strain, constructed the second largest
navy in the world-that is n new navy
larger than any other save her Original
feet
"Britan financed All her allies unit
the United States came into the war
She has supplied France, Italy and tho
United States, to say nothing of Rus
STA prior to the revolution, with a great
proportion of their guns. muniti
rifles. uniforms. and airplanes. Beside.
supplying coal for her own navy, mer
chant marine, and industries, She ha
furnished France and Italy with muel
coal and great quantities of foodstuffi
from overseas. The motherland has as
sumsed an immense war debt, but it i
in her expenditures of lives that sh
has subjected herself to the most gricv
Gus losses, Upward Of 100000 Brit
sh soldiers have given their lives il
/ the last four years. Last year alon
her list of caSualtics-dead, wounded
and missing aggregated $4,000. He
donation of men to the Allied cauS
exceeds 100000. In proportion to he
population she has given nearly tire
times as many men as Canada If Cana