WAR AS A MEASURE OF ECONOMY.

Patea Mail, Volume XXXIX, 4 December 1914, Page 4

WAR AS A MEASURE OF ECONOMY.

—. —-»- • .. (Prom the 'Portland Oregonian). Some of the belligerent nations may have calculated that actual war was less expensive than peace armed to the last man and to the last dollar. Chairman Gary, of the United States Steel Corporation/estimates the cost of the war much higher than others, who/ have placed it at £10,000,000 a day o* £3,<500,000,000 a year. His estimate is £6,000,000,000 a year, but even at that figure war may prove cheaper thah the sort of peace Europe had had for forty years. j

In twenty-five years armed peace had cost the great Powers £5,000,000,000, and the pace had grown at such a rapid rate year by year that a French economist places the army and navy expenses of the six great Powers at • £400,000,000 in .1913 alone. That is at the rate of £10,000,000,000. in twenty-five years. Judge Gary estimates that a year of war costs fifteen times as much as a year of the kind of peace Europe has recently "enjoyed," leaving out of consideration indirect and remote cost. If the Powers could be confident that a year of war would end militarism and settle finally all the disputes which give rise to it, they might "see an ultimate saving in spending fifteen times a year's outlay in one year. They may have been driven to this desperate war by signs that 'they had reached the limit of their military capacities to pay military expenses. France and Austria-Hungary had • given signs that they would raise no money by taxes. In Great Britain and Germany military expenses have increased faster than the average income of their people Tor the last forty years. Realising that they were near the point of financial exhaustion, the nations may have welcomed the opportunity of ending it all n °ne grand struggle ,to death. The war is a contest, not only of military skill and valor, but of financial endurance. The Powers arc, in effect, Spending m advance the amount thev would have spent on armament in the 2, fift « years, assuming that they would continue the present scale. Britlsn income tax and naval expenses each doubled in the last fourteen years, !nd the people might have endured another tw mg in + t,,e * next fourteen y*S now °J mt ? f , incre *Bed' taxation Shin r + ? tenS *? bc s P cnfc in °«e vear. Sb «-+• ° War last a - Tear ' the British nation cair pay the principal of its cost by doubling the income tax fo? to pay the interest. That done, they Er S ?r lG d T n interest cZ their pre-existing debt, and, if the set- , tlemcnt should be such as to iusttfv reducing the scale of armaments they can begin paying off the debt itself. One can see f the egtimat provokes war betweeri nataonsof approximately equal strength it is a lasting guarantee of peace only powei. The tendency is to add more arK am ? 1 ', until a taking Writ is anally-reached When a nationalises gat it cannot raise money to add anSmeS iP thrr tllCr -. C - ann °" or re lment, the disposition is to ffcht and get it over with, lest further delay en Jbles the foe to gain superiority ThJt