THE ACHIEVEMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17104, 8 September 1917, Page 8

THE ACHIEVEMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN.

(From an American Magazine.)

All tho seven wonders of the world fade on history's page, compared with, the Bpectaclo Great Britain presents to-day. A commercial nution of less than 50,000,000 peoplo suddenly summoned to arms where no arma oxistod, and in ' Uuin thirty months she has a bigger ;:.. J than history ever before recorded, and a \..\x machine in Europe that for wealth of shell, explosives, and war power, is the amazement of the Germans who had taken ten times thirty months to prepare for tho attack. But this is the beginning of wonders. Without an English aeroplane that could circle her own island she has vanquished tho boasted Zeppelin, arid is mistress of her own skies. With submarines by the hundred threatening her coast defences, her food supplies and her commerce, she has swept all oceans, locked tho vaunted German floet in harbour, convoyed shipments of gold across the ocean in safety—loads of gold that in former times would have paralysed national financial markets—made the English Chan-iel her multiple-track-ocean-railway to Europe with no loss by Zeppelin or submarine; fought in Egypt at the Suez Canal and at tho Dardanelles; grappled with the Turk and the Bulgar; changed generals and admirals in command; changed Cabinets; fed tho armies of Franco; given arma to Russia; maintained the armies and governments of Belgium and Serbia, and altogether advanced three thoueand million dollars, or three times the national debt of the United States to her War Allies.

While the United States has been trying to find out how to build military rifles in quantities, and has unfilled orders for them representing hundreds of millions of dollars, England has been turning out rifles by. tho million for herself and her Allies, cannon by the thousand, boots and coats by the million for herself and Allies, and wonder of wonders, she has done all this, is doing it, is yet to do more, and has now her manufacturing, her trade relations and her overseas commerce unimpaired. Yet she has grabbed tho tradei of the world so that her enemies aro struggling on half rations with food, rubber, and metal supplies from the outside world practically cut off except as new territory is taken. This is a gigantic physical power, and a trade and war power combined never before dreamed of. It puts in the shade all that the world previously knew of Great Britain's financial power. Nobody dreamed two years ago that the war costs to Great Britain were to be beyond five or six billion dollars. It is to-day more than twice that sum, and Great Britain is prepared to double it again. But stupendous, and even beyond all previous estimates as is the financial power, the physical and mental power manifested by Great Britain, is the marvel of marvels. The British Lion was regarded as a money bag of trade and a whelp of tho seas. Great Britain's ability to put 10 per cent, of her population under arms, to feed and equip her Allies, and at the same time to maintain her credit and commerce throughout the world, was sometiling never dreamed of within or without the Empire before this war.

No economist ever counted tho wealth in credit, gold reserves, and securities power that is now showing forth in the British Empire. No student of men and nations ever pictured forth tho war spirit of the British people that couldt be so roused, in a righteous cause. No student of religion or social order ever gauged the spirit of self-sacrifice that is now lighting the path of the nation of war. This is tho people's war. It is the war of democracy that has built the British Empire around the globe. It ia not a war of kings, lords, or nobles. It is a war in defence of all the civilisation, peace, and honour for which England hag stood and in which she has made progress for more than a hundred years. ' The Prussians could measurably measure the wealth of England, count her population, and take toll of her guns, big and little. They numbered her military men, her business men, and her idle and leisured classes; and outside of her navy, her wealth, and her trade, she was by the Prussian military census, as nothing. But nowhere in the world was there anything by which to measure tho slumbering soul of that people. It is fighting mad to-day and getting madder every minute. The 'stigmas and insults to credit and honour from Washington, only increased the resolve of her people, and their' faith in the invincibility of their righteous cause. For this, they are willing to pledge everything in sacrifice for justice upon the altar of their battle fires. To what martyred souls' runs back this heritage of noble spirit only tho historian of the future may attempt to answer. The purpose of the present inquiry is to answer the problem of whence England gets her human power and her metal power. Twenty-five years ago the machinery of England and her metal workers stamped out the coins of many nations, and moulded the. guns, big and little, of many more. She was the ordnance maker of the world. Then Germany became her rival as a metal worker, and, getting Government bounties of orders, she was able with her cheaper labour' and living to cut under the prices of freetrade England. ' Tho ordnance fires of England went out except for navy guns —and "Made in Germany" invaded the island and was stamped over the world, on everything, from outlery to rifles and

cannon. But the foundations in metal workers and the old factories in this business had not entirely* disappeared when the Prussian hosts fired upon Belgium and attempted to roll up the treaties of Europe as scraps of paper. It was on this almost forgotten foundation that England has brought forth her wealth of war material and is organising to roll tho Prussian back over the Rhine in 1917.

England's reserve in man power that can maintain her oommercial production, her exports, and overseas trade, while putting an army greater than that of France in the field, needs to be carefully studied. Germany » living on 30 per cent per capita of • what it was consuming ; before the war, bat England is consuming, feeding , , and fighting to tho extent that her physical force is increased by far more than 30 per cent. The whole nation is fighting, men. women, and children. There is nothing else thought of, talked of, or worked for throughout the wholo country. All the leisured classes, men and women, are one way or another in the war. The women are joining in tho ranks of labour, and all labour to-day is for the country, with everything in production, trade, and commerce, locked in tho war issue. It is not only _ a financial and metal, but a social, economic struggle in Europe, such as the world has never dreamed of, and of which the people of the United States almost have no comprehension.

Formerly, armies fought battles, and the war was whererer the armies moved. Today five hundred million people ano arrayed m battle, and organising in clothing, food, and drink, and the discarding of luxuries, while increasing' in the energies and hours of labour and in the mutual burdens of all forms of taxation. Any excess profit 13 promptly taxed. In England more than two billions a year, or one-quarter of the cost, is being raised by taxation. Grains are being ground more coarsely, with the result that, in bulk, they produce 25 per cent, more, a smaller gercontage of nutriment is lost, and the food, being richer in nutriment, consumption per capita is diminished without breadcarda or any other German regulations.

The »?hole world is coming ;nto a new civilisation, a new manhood, and a now womanhood, and a new strength for both war and peace; and from Washington to San Francisco there appears to bo little comprehension of the issues and the economic results that must inevitably flow therefrom.