WHAT PEACE COSTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12284, 5 April 1918, Page 2

WHAT PEACE COSTS.

VICTOR (SOFTEN LOSER. (“Pearson’s Weekly.”) Going to war is very much like going to law. It is a costly and unsatisfactory game to play, in which even the winner is considerably out of pocket, while the loser has not only his own bill of costs to pay, but must make a heavy contribution towards his opponent’s expenses. This was clearly demonstrated within the memory of many of our readers when Franco had to bend tho knee to Prussia, a generation and more ago. In addition to the loss of 290,000 lives and an expenditure of £316,000,000, France was called upon to cede to the victor the province of Alsace (except Belfort) and part of Lorraine, including Metz, and to pay a war indemnity of five thousand million francs, or £200,000,000. One might well have thought that such an impost would crush the life out of beaten France, who had already paid such a heavy price for war; and that a •generation inight well pass before she saw the last of the German troops occupying her land. FIRMLY OK HER FEET. But to the amazement of the world she paid the last franc of her indemnity within three years, thanks largely to the “stockings” in which the thrifty peasantry had hoarded their savings. And before Germany had completed the building of new fortifications out of her war-gold, France was once more firmly on her financial feet and had entered on a new era of prosperity greater than she had ever known. It is interesting to note that France’s indemnity, although it represented as ranch gold as thirty regiments of her soldiers could well carry, was a smaller sum than the world is now spending on a fortnight of war. "When Turkey sued for peace to Russia in 1877 she herself estimated her liability to her conquerors at £ M 0,000,000, a sum which works out at about £432,000 for each day of lighting. Her satisfaction may thus be imagined when she found that the bill presented to her only amounted to £32,000,000, or less than a quarter of what she was prepared to pay. But small as the sum seems, actually less than wo alone are spending on war every week, a little calculation will show that it represents a- column of £5 bank-notes, piled one on the top of another, nearly twice as high as the Eiffel Tower, and five times as lofty as the cross of St Paul’s Cathedral. A TREMENDOUS CHEQUE.

Austria came .still better out of ber defeat by Prussia just half a century ago; for, although the latter demanded a heavy price, for the seven days it took her to thrash her opponents, it was so reduced by a deduction of 20,000,000 thalers, representing Austria’s claim < n Schleswig-Holstein, and an allowance for boarding and lodging the conquering army, that the actual cash that changed hands only amounted to £3,000,000. For her defeat by Japan in 1895 China had to pay an indemnity of £35,000,000—a sum estimated to represent a payment of £ll a week for each Japanese soldier employed ; and of this enormous sum £11,008.857 was handed over in a single cheque (the largest ever drawn), the transaction being completed in the proscnce.pf the Governor. Deputy-Governor and Chief Cashier of the Bank of England.

Even in this ease, although the war was short, tile victors, as acknowledged in the Japanese Diet in 1598, were financial losers. When Turkey thrashed Greece in 1897 she claimed an indemnity o' £10,009,000; but, in the face of European disapproval, was obliged to nccep* a more modest £4,000.000. The Opium "War of 1840-1 ended in China paying ns Ihe trifling sum of six and (hre.e-o,nailer million pounds: and when the United Stales proved vicious in the recent war with Spain, instead of receiving ;1n indemnity in cash she actually handed over to her beaten enemy a, cheque for £5400,n0n ; n payment. for ceded territory Snell lias lic.cn the cost in money or peace in the. past. Wha.l it. will 'lm when (ho present war closes who shall , ~.0