THE PRICE OF PEACE.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13753, 19 June 1913, Page 4

THE PRICE OF PEACE.

Several startling particulars of the present military and naval oxpendituro by the nations of the world are toffee found in an article in the June "Review of Reviews," entitled "Beggar-my-Noighbour in Europe." It appears that the race in armaments is costing no less a sum than' £500,000,000 annually in hard cash. If avo add to this the economic loss caused by diminished production and abandoned study owing to conscription, reckoning at tho rate of only £1 per week for each conscript, wo find ('ho nations lost in 1912 £200,000,000 over and abovo the actual cash spent; so that to maintain peace cost the -colossal sum of £700,000,000. Of the great acceleration in the race of armaments the writer says:—The great acceleration of this race of armaments will tax the wealth and the patience of tho people to the uttermost. It will almost double Europe's military burden by the increase of taxation and the simultaneous introduction of the threo years' service for all ablo-bodios youths. The latest development of Europe's military preparations may impoverish Continental Europe and drive it to.despair. It will certainly increase popular dissatisfaction, strengthen Socialism, and may lead either to great internal upheavals or to a great war. Wars i.re frequently brought about by economic pressure. Tho ruinous acceleration which is taking place in the armament race may create among the nations of tho Continent the conviction that war is cheaper than peace, and that it is, after all, the smaller evil.