THE PRICE OF PEACE AND WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2241, 12 May 1877, Page 2

THE PRICE OF PEACE AND WAR.

THE " Novaya Yremia"ofSt Petersburg, in an article on the question of a RussoTurkish Avar, argues'that Avar is, in the end, cheaper and more advantageous to a state than armed neutrality. The history of Austria, it says, affords some striking illustrations of the truth of this proposition. In IS4S the military peace budget of Austria Avas 75,000,000 florins. Since then Austria has made Avar Avith Italy and Hungary (1849), with France (1859), with Denmark (1364), and Avitli Prussia (1866). The first of these Avars cost 147,000,000 florins ; the second, 225,000,000 florins ; the the third, 111,500,000 florins; and the fourth, 230,000,000 florins. With the single exception of the Danish campaign, all these wars Avere most disastrous to Austria. Yet, heavy as were its losses, the country rapidly recovered itself alter each campaign. If Aye now take the cost of the mobilisations of Austria as a neutral poAvcr, Aye shall find that in ISSO it cost her 121,000,000 florins _to maintain an armed neutrality against Prussia; that in 1853 and 1854 she expended

412,000,000 florins in mobilising hey army during the Crimean war ; and that in 1871 102,000,000 florins had to be added to her war budget in consequence of her neutrality daring the war between France and Germany" These expenses, however, wore as nothing compared to the indirect losses incurred. Although during the Crimean war, Austria did not fire a shot, her army lost' 40,000 men, owing to the epidemics caused by concentrating large bodies of men on her frontier. Armed neutrality is also most destructive to the financial credit of a nation. During' the war and the revolution in 1849 and 1850, tho debt of the State bank increased from 139,000,000 florins to 231 000,00 > florins; during the war of 1859 it rose from 210,000,000 florins to 302,000,000 florin--; ; while during the armed neutrality of 1854-55, it was increased from 125,000.00011. to 371,000,000 th that is, by from 50 to 75 per cent during the war, and by 200 per cent during neutrality. The other debts of the Stat.increased on this latter occasion in a corresponding degree, owing to the difficulty of collecting the revenue, and the paralysis of trade. In time of war, on the other hand, the uncertainty which puts a stop to enterprise does not exist; the danger of war is much more prejudicial to trade than war itself, while the enthusiasm and energy which war deveiopes in a nation naturally give a powerful stimulus to all its industrial and commercial operation*. From these arguments the " Novaya Vremia "draws the conclusion that it would be better for Russia, to make war on Turkey at once than to keep her troops in idleness on the Turkish frontier.