The Cost of It.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20232, 16 February 1934, Page 6

The Cost of It.

THE FINANCE MINISTER of Japan. Mr Takahashi, warns his nation that if present expenditures are continued for five years the entire national revenue will be consumed in meeting interest on the public debt (writes Mr Willis J. Abbot, a noted American journalist). The leading military jovirnal of Germany, pointing out that the World War cost more than a thousand times as much as the FrancoPrussian War, speculates on the query whether military preparations and the wars they lead up to are doomed because of their enormous financial and economic cost. The Disarmament Conference is staggering toward an almost assured collapse in February. Japan and the United States are clearly embarked on a race in naval construction. If there be any understanding of what a new war would mean to civilisation, or any comprehension of what the costs of constant preparation for war means to the already sorely taxburdened peoples, the Governments of the world most certainly do not manifest it.