COST OF THE WAR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 129, 4 June 1919, Page 7

COST OF THE WAR

IN MEN, MONEY,, AND 1 MATERIAL. SURVEY OF A (TREAT OBJECT. HUGE LOSSES, NO ASSETS. Various estimates' have been mode of the cost of the war, but, so fill 1 ; JUlne has, dealt with tlm whole Of the bill for the \y!mle Of Uifi pchiod; B a.ys it-u-English Wriitir. An.y bstilhuto outside the official figures Of tlir direct tost — that is, the Cost undisclosed in votes of credit-, to loans, and new taxation —must, ol course, be largely ounjeqtmlal; but lit is* neveGlnjless, possible to obtain a. fairly approximate idea, with regard to the vaguer items of material damage and economic disturbance. 'There is disagreement even about the direct costs, due partly to the absence of figures from some of the belligerent States, anil partly to variations of estimate for the armistice period. There is, however, enough accord t) justify a general judgment, and a few millions of difference- in Ihe reckoning of expenditure, or a difference in the standards of the economic value of men's lives, will not vitiate the essential quality of thill judgment. "What is it wfe nietui by “the emt of the war?” Obviously, We mean niiich more thau the amount represented by taxes and loans. What may properly be included arc the direct cost to belligerents and neutrals, the value of the propertv destroyed, the loss in production bv the diversion of men from industry to warfare, and the economic value of the -lives that have been .tost or i;-endcred incapable of any useful work. Some” writers appear to think that the question of cost is complicated by the possibility of -indemnity and reparation, but these have really little,*to do with it. No act of compensation can lessen the bill} it simply fchiilits, oh partly shifts, the -burdeni from the wronged' to those who have done the wrong. Any indemnity paid by Germany to- France, for instance, would lessen" France’s own liability, but it would not decrease the cost of the wav.

FORTY THOUSAND MILLIONS. For arriving at the direct cost of The war there are a mini her of data, more j or less useful, but they do not all relate to the same periods, nor do they cover the whole of the field. M. Augustin Ham on, in hj i s “Lessons of the World War,” s-aid a, couple of years a.'o that if the war did not cease before the close of 1918 the total expenditure might glow to as much as £29,600,000,(XX). That calculation wa» published before the United States came in. and, moreover, it did not make sufficient allowance for expansion in the subsequent rat© of expenditure. Mr. Joseph Kit-hin ha* prepared an .estimate of the costs “based on what they would have been if actual hostilities had lasted till the end of July next.” For eight months of that period, the expenditure, on armistice conditions will be considerably less than it would have been if fighting had continued, and for this r-eai«m obiiu’s cctimales of £38.915,000,000 for all the belligerents- may be jj. Title too high. On the other hand, it has to be remembered that neutrals have been obliged,) in view of possibilities., to spend .large sums of money in de ells'vc preparations, and we shall. probable not, exaggerate if we put down 1 the total direct cost up to the of peace at not le/s than £40,000,000000. This total is also arrived at by tlie Federal Reserve- Board ok A\ ashington. It cannot, of course, be vouched for, but it i & believed to be substantially correct. We have at least the indisputable fact, to go upon that the public debts of the Entene and A - lied countries have grown sui’ce Augmt, 1914, from £4,565,000,000 to £25,360,000,000; and those of the Central Rowers from £1,210,000,000' to £l4650,000,000; the increase for ad the belligerents, but not ine.uding neutralsv being £34,225,000,000. From tins sum, however, should be the British loans to. Allies and Dominions, and to it there ought to he added the war debt* of the German Sates; but these adjustments*' do net by a jot affect the relation of national debts to the question of war costs. It hi ay bem--eumed that the figure of £40,000.0-0,-000 of direct cost, with its consequent and inevitable burden on the next two generations, is approximately accninleWhen. wo come* to the subject of material damage, a\y satisfactory asfiessment is much more difficult. In the absence of official surveys, it must be purely conjectural. What we do know, however, of the havoc wrought in France and Belgium warrants conjecture on the big scale. Other conntries—Poland, Lithuania, Eastern Prussia, the Bukovina, Galicia, Serbia, Ron - mania. Macedonia, the Trentino, and our own Fast Const—have also suffered severely. AT Mamou puts Urns devastation 1 down at 2000 millions, but that was before the last great drive of

Marshal Foch, in the coin’s© of which the enemy burnt or blew up every town and village through which ho retreated. Fifty per, cent, might perhaps be now added to M. HamotTs figure without exposing it to the charge of exaggeration. Them there is the inoal utable loi»s Mtlsed by the removal of productive , plant, the I'orc.cd suspension.- of industry; the ihtereferefic-c with the World's <£verstias commerce, tile d:s(Ji’gatl : satuiu Of tHe wdrld s industry a lid finance, arid the unprOduc ; tivencss, for the time being, of the 50,000,000 men engaged in military and other duties connected with the war or field in readiness for warfare.

CLASSIFICATIONS' OF COST. Take the last- of these, items, and let if l>e supposed that only half the number were taken from indut-drial occupations, 'Let it be further supposed, hi the interests of moderation, that their average prolan ve ]L wcr over and above' the -Costs of material, labour, etc., Wrts not more than £25 a year, also that their average period of purely military ditties was limited to two years; this Would {jive tig. it JpHa- of iISO pCr ilian. Or 1250 millions in all. Then there is the capital villuC ol the killed and permanently disabled.- Without counting Belgium, Serbia., .lapafi. and Portugal, the losses in killed were over 5,500,000, and the number of wounded incapable of returning to anj occupation from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 more. Altogether ft’semis fair to reckon that not fewer than 9,000,000 men between the ages of 18 and 48 have been sacrificed. "If we pul limit* average cUi'niitsg down at no more than a week and their average probability ! of life at only ten years, wc get an economic loss' of 4680 millions. This is to value each man, taking one with another, at £520, whereas some economists put it as high its £IOOO. I here L the further consideration 1 that the great majority ol those victims, if not all of them, were potential taxpayers, , and that their, removal puts a heavier burden, on: tho#o who aro left. Wo may now sum up these classifications o cost. Wo have 40,000 millions for ,dire.t, cost, 3000 million* for damage, 1250 millions for loss of pro- 1 duct-ion. and; 4680 millions a B . the economic, value of the lost and disabled, lives, making altogether nearly -0,009 millions. As a set-off against the possibility of some overlapping, wc may nut the indirect costs of diminished trade and financial disturbance. £50,000.0(10,000, as Mcrcutio said, is enough; ”twill serve,” for it is about one-half of the aggregate, pre-war wealth of the tour richest countries--the Uni led .States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and trance.

THE MORAL RECOMPENSE. From the point of view of ordinary accountancy, the scale kivka the beam. It is a balance-sheet with _ noting on the credit side. The material costs aie enormous, the material assets aie m • At the very best the result is a poor halfpennyworth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack. Vast sums have hem used for sheer destruction; vast public debts have been incurred-. which there is no corresponding p>oporty. Throughout two-tlnrds of the world the work oi useful production has been .suspended, during four years, and its place* ha* boon taken Jw the production; for the slaughter of human !i\c« and the annihilation of accumulated wealth. Millions of meu have been kiTcd, thousands of millions <>t pounds have been wasted in order to kill them, towns and villages and smu,n»- homestead* have been swept out m existence, gveqt vessels laden with precious cargoes have been' sent to the bottom of the *ea, and agaans.tr all .U s there Is ■nothing to be set that reckoned, iln- economic values, but there is a moral asset to be taken mto account We may, at least, hope that we have put an end for ever to the danger of Prussian militarism; but precious though such a. consummation mav be. it hj aw insuffivciit rctuM- foi such huge and almost intolerable sacrifices. If out of the rums and hectacombs of the last four years there arises a new,' brighter, and happici world, then the Millions that have been spent wTI, not all have been spent in: vain, Without such a denouement the world will be bankrupt of hope as well as of money.