Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-11-01
GENEVA ARMS CONFERENCE
TO DECIDE FATE OF WORLD
Whether Nations Will Continue to Pour
Resources Into War Machinery or
Turn to Peace Is Question.

| Germany, supposedly down and on.
and saved from financial and economic
collapse by President Hoover's mora.
forum, finds her resources ample TO
spend more per man on her limited
army than any other nation In the
world. including the United States.
Every soldier gets an officers education.
It appears. Although ''disarmed" by the
peace treaties, Germanys ornaments bin.
has risen from ACT, 900 900 gold marks
in 1924 TO 769,1i3.000 gold marks IN
1929. The pace is being maintained this
year.
Beyond Germany lies Russia, where a
Soviet Utopia publishes records which
show that in 1924 her ornaments ex-
penditures were only 436,00O.0O0 gold
rubles. In 1929 they were 939 100000
gold ruhles. and this year they win be
1.125. 100. coo gold rubles.
Whether one is willing to admit It or
not. there Is hardly a person living who
is not directly affected by disarmament.
Every country Is groanfng under ex-
cessive taxation. Every family almost
still feels the effects Of the last war.
In the United States there are between
6.000, 900 and 100000 unemployed. In
Europe another $4,000, 900 men are idle
and the voorhees, army Is growing. The
number Of dependents on reduced ra-
tons is incalculable.
Industrial Future In Doubt.
Upon the trend Of international af-
fairs In the next few months will de-
pend, to q large extent, whether the
wheels Of industry are soon to revolve
again or whether existing disorder Is TO
increase.
For 10 years European governments
have been twisting and evading i'm
portant issues In regard to disarma-
nomic necessity have brought most OF
them up against finalities. Either dis
armament, as envisaged n the YER
satlles treaty, the League covenant and
other pacts, viii start on the road to
reality when the nations meet the LIST Of
February or disarmament viii be q fall
ure. =
If It fails? A reorganization Of the
last war indicates what may be the re-
suit. From 1914 to 1918 Europe was
battlefield. Thirteen million men died
IN the war. Numerically that does not
mean much. Pictorially 1t means corpses
laid side by side, with shoulder touching
shoulder, stretching from New York to
San Francisco and far out into the Pa
cific. That imaginary roadway of
corpses represents only those who fell
on the battlefields.
Add to this number another 24,ooo.-
COO dead, the victims of unrestricted
submarine warfare, land and sea block
AIDES, aerial bombardments, disease and
other factors directly attributable to the
war and the total Is 81, 900 900 who per-
ished. Their bodies would make q rib-s
bon. two bodies wide, reaching conn
pletely around the earth at the Equator.
War Burden Painted.
As for money, the last war cost every
man, woman and child In the United
States 5000 each. For the people Of the
British Empire the cost was about 500
per capita; for France, $500 per person;
for Russia, around $4o0: for Italy. Bel
GUM and Bulgaria, the same sum. Ger
many and the ex-enemy states were
equally hard hit, Germany having to pay,
excluding reparations, with which she Is
now weighted down, $3.50 per capita,
while Austria paid 5000 per person.
Even Turkey, out on the fringe Of hos
tilities, had q bill equaling $50 for every
person in her borders.
The property destruction Of the World
War In France alone was stupendpus.
Nearly 100000 homes were destroyed,
10000 miles Of roads ruined, 9,700
bridges DESTROYED and $4,000 factories
put out Of commission.
An imaginative statistician, playing
with figures, has calculated that the
cost Of the war would buy for every
family in the United States, Canada,
Britain, Germany, Australia, France,
Belgium and Russia fully furnished
home and three acres Of land. In adj
dttion, for each group Of 10000 people
there would be q modern university,
hospitals, schools, churches and ample
money left over to pay doctors, preach
ers and teachers.
The property destroyed, calculated In
terms Of work, represents the labor Of
1000, 600 men working "A hours per week
over 5000 years-or 200 years OF steady
work for every unemployed man In Eu-
rope today.
That was the last war, which most
people have forgotten. The next war,
according to wen informed experts-with
its poisonous gases, long-range cannon,
airplanes, powerful explosives, microbes ).
nation.