TOPICS OF THE TIMES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXII, Issue 4638, 11 May 1938, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

The Cost of Peace and War. The amount spent on the Great War has been set forth in various ways, one of the most striking being in a discussion in the United States Congress. It was said that the total sum was the value of five nations like France and five like Belgium, and that it would have bought a house at a cost of £625, furnished it at a cost of £250, and placed on five acres of land costing £25 an acre, such a house could be given free to every family in the United States, the British Isles, Australia, France, Germany, Russia and Belgium; and then there would have been sufficient left over to provide every city of 200,000 people in each of those countries with a library costing £1,250,000 and a university endowed with £2,500,000. And even then there would have been milions left—more than the value of France and Belgium. It is not a great sum that the Commonwealth asks to help to prevent a calamity involving such appalling waste; and it is not a great sacrifice that the States are asked to make as a contribution to the same end.—Melbourne "Argus."