WAR AT A PROFIT.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 56

WAR AT A PROFIT.

Cfhen it Pays to Fight. — Moral and Intellec- I tiiiil Damage, say £1,000,000. — Ger- ' many's Profit over the Franco -German War. — Japan's Harvest from China. — What Kruger Didn't Get. In the good old fighting days of 100 years ago there were very few callings in which an .enterprising man could so quickly make a fortune as in soldiering. Nowadays Tommy Atkins is forbidden to take as much as a brass button or a loaf of bread without paying for it. But his employers, the Government, have stepped into his shoes with regard to booty, and in recent wars the victorious nations have made immense profits. ' The Franco-German war of 1870 was the mos-. profitable ever fought. Everyone j knows that France had to pay to Germany | an indemnity of £200,000,000. But Germany got a great deal more out of her defeated foe than that. She got £12,000,000 Snterest before the indemnity was all paid. She carried off general goods to the value of £10,000,000. She took home at least £1,000,000 worth of railway carriages and engines. While her army was in France she made "requisitions" for food and clothing to the extent of £30,000,000— that is to say, whenever the Germans wanted anything, from a fin to clothing for a whole regiment, or from a piece of bread to a herd of cattle, they simply took it, and gave the owner a receipt which he presented to his own Government

after the Avar for payment. All these things, apart from the actual indemnity, meant aßout £64,000,000 transferred from French to German pockets. But there Avere the captured provinces of Ateacc and Lorraine, in addition, and statisticians place their value at I £64,000,000. If avc add these three huge

sums it appears that Germany receiA'ed £328,000,00"0 from the Avar. Against that, hoAvever, is to be placed expenditure and losses. During the campaign the German Government A r oted a sum of £60,000,000 for expenses. This Avas the total of the direct cost. But after the Avar she had to pay pensions to her disabled soldiers, and the capital value of these is £5,000,000. '. Germany lost nothing by suspension of trade, for ncr business went on just as usual. But as a million soldiers Avcre taken aAvay from their ordinary Avork on the farm and in the factory, it is supposed that she suffered a loss of about £50,000,000 in this Avay. So that Germany's total Avar losses amounted to £115,000,000. If the losses be substracted from the gains it turns out that Germany made a clear jn-ofit 1 of £213,000,000— about as much as the Avhole population of Germany could have saA 7 ed in three years. No other nation has ever made such a good thing out of Avar as Germany. A few years previous to this windfall slip c;ot an indemnity from Austria of £8.350,000 after only one month's fighting. This was at the rate , of £5 per week for each man engaged. j Japan did .a good stroke of business, also, Avhen it attacked China a feAv years ago. Possibly her imitatiA*e statesmen remembered hoAV easily Germany earned enough money to put her on a strong industrial footing, and determined to emulate the Teuton. Any- | lioav, the Japs are said to have spent only

£6,000,000. But they made China pay up to the tune of £37,000,000. As there were only 80,000 Japanese troops engaged, this gives a profit of £390 for each soldier, or £10 per man per week. Iv 1839 we ourselves made something, though not much out of John Chinaman, j Although the fighting lasted nearly three , years, our Parliament had to vote only £2,200,000 to carry it on. When all was over, however, we made China pay a bill of £4,200,000, so that oiir profit was an even ! £2,000,000. But some 20 years later we lost j moie than that amount in war with the .same country. While it cost us nearly £7,000,000 we asked China to pay a mere fourth of that amount. Russia, in 1878, was very near making a haul from Turkey, and she probably would have succeeded but for the interference of Lord Beiconsfield. After fighting the T ! "V f c " i 'en months, and getting perilous' ' '''Ptantinonle, she demandfd an , | indent „i i.f £90.000,000 for what she spent i in maintaining her army and what she lost 'in war material, and £51,000,000 for injury to Russian commerce, or £141,000,000 altogether. Of this she wanted £32,000,000 in f'xb and the remainder in territory. But England and the other great powers would not allow her to take the territory, and the whole of the cash she is never likely to get. So tha*. the war really resulted in a heavy loss to Russia. The latest case of this kind is, of course, ' t^e Tivms.vail. President Kruger made the f. r - - rlaim : -** ; >:v "!\t Kri'oer's Claim. ' nf military service jfin^TSl ■' >>ii|icns>at.k>ns and pensions 37,94:3 '" !oc,T.a|;liic expenses A 002 j Payment to burgheis for trouble and j "oirea 4 2,120 Sundries 3«.22!> 5' r>rn,l and intellectual damage, say 1,000,000 Total £1,677,013 It Wi » made iv April 1897, but has not yet been met. If Prer-rdent Kruger gets it 1 at all, ' lie will have made the highest profit ever earned in war, coii'sidering its duration and the number of troops engaged. j