THE COST OF WAR

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3550, 6 May 1939, Page 2

THE COST OF WAR

A PROFESSOR'S OPINION

WHAT AUSTRALIA WOULD PAY

"What Will a War Cost Us?" is the title of an interesting article written by Alan Moyle in the Melbourne Sun-Pictorial. He tells of an interview with a well-known Professor, and all that is said could fairly well be applied to New Zealand. At a time such as this, the article is worthy of the attention of everyone.

"There are boys today in the city slum and the home of wealth and pride," wrote Henry Lawson in 1895, "who'll have one home when the storm is come and fight for it side by side . . . and many a pinkwhite baby girl, the queen of her home today, will see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dream away ... I tell you," said Lawson nearly 45 years ago, "1 tell you the Star of the South shall rise —in the lurid clouds of war. It ever must be while blood is warm and the sons of men increase . . ." Poetry—yes. Prophecy—possibly. But what will it cost us—you and me —to "know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is lost and won"? What would war cost Australians?

Tliis week-end we come again to a crisis. It has become almost a habit, this crisis week-end. A bad habit, a hateful habit, a nervewracking habit. And some of us feel that human nerves somewhere must crack soon under the strain, and the delicate balance that keep covers over breeches and muzzles will go whirling uncontrolled, and —the impossible happiness and all the pathetic idealisms of the past twenty years—Australia will be at war.

Notice that I do not merely say Britain—l say, Australia will be at war.

This is no alarmist staesment. We all know it to be true.

There is not much of idealism left us today, but if it comes, to backs-to-the-wall for Australia we will still be fighting for ideals. Yesterday, in a city office a man said to me: "The real trouble is that people think there was an armistice in 1918. Really, there wasn't. We're still fighting the war to end war that began in 1914." How right was he? When will the end begin? What must we pay, you and I in Australia, for the eventual peace? For peace must one day come. That is our conviction, and if we fight, we fight for that.

I took my question, that so many have asked me in the past few weeks, to one of the most competent authorities on the point in Australia. 'What would a war cost me?" I asked my friend, Douglas Copeland, Professor of Economics, among other things, in the University of Melbourne. Professor Copeland lit the inevitable cigarette and, peering through the smoke, said: "But first, what sort of war? This is the most important point for us. If we are plunged into a conflict on a basis similar to our part in the last war, our function would be almost identical —we would merely supply men for the front lines and sell our primary products to governments at a great increase in price. "The most serious price we had to pay economically in the last war was the withdrawal of men from primary production and secondary industry to help swell the fighting forces. A similar cost in a war in the future, if that were all we had to meet, would not greatly disturb the economic life of Australia.

"In the last war we sent an enormous number of fighting men to the European fronts, in proportion to the population, but the real economic effects on Australia at the time was not bad. In other words, Australia was able to bear without much undue discomfort the burdens imposed by the last war, and, conpared with Britain and France, was comparatively unscathed economically. Pivots on Isolation "Please understand," explained the professor, "that in any comments I might make at this stage I speak quite apart from the cost to the nation in lives and in shattered health —one cannot estimate this sort of cost. It is something that always must be beyond calculation that a man will be ready to lay down his life for a friend. . . . "But the contrast between the last war and a war in the future, whether near or far, must be very marked. In any computation of the cost to the State and the inch-

vidual of another war, everything depends on the degree of isolation of Australia. If it is impossible for this country to export its primary and secondary products, if Australia is blockaded or even partly blockaded, and becomes unable to send to the Empire fronts either men or supplies, then there is going to be an economic upheaval. It might even be necessary to revise entirely our whole economis system and social structure.

"Take a simple commodity like tea. I understand you cai>'t keep tea long without deterioration. We import our tea. Blockade would mean that we would have to do without tea. At first glance it might seem trifling, but tea has become part of our standard of life. It is almost an institution. Its lack would make a difference to our social life.

'A blockade would probably limit if not abolish the importation of coffee, of motor cars, of films, of French and Italian and German wines. Some of these things taken separately might seem small in the life of a people, others loom larger, but taken together they form the background against which we live our national life.

"Cessation of the importation of some of these things might be of benefit to this country. For instance we do not drink Australian wine as we might. But if we could not get foreign ones we would certainly have to drink Australian, and would learn, as foreigners have already learned, to appreciate our own magnificient wines. Tobacco is another case in point—we can grow good tobacco; Ave might grow better if the demand was there. If there is a Blockade "Blockade would mean that we would have to produce more, become entirely self-supporting. We would have to expand our textile production, our manufacture of tweeds and sheeting and cotton goods. What the motorists would do, goodness knows —with only limited petrol supplies, and no more coming from overseas, they would probably have to hang up their cars until happier days. Today we consume some 400,000,000 gallons of petrol a year—blockade might lead to the conversion of cars to charcoal burning engines, and probably would. "There would be an enormous change in transport. The danger of sporadic coastal raids would tie up almost all coastal shipping. Freight and passengers would be diverted to the railways and roads, the railways would probably have to bear the brunt of interstate traffic That might lead at last to the ending of the awful disadvant-, age of the break of guage. j "There would be a general mobi- | lisation of labour —and that in- j eludes employers as well as em- , ployees—to divert men and capital | to manufacture for defence, and maintenance of essential industries. In the event of partial blockade, imports, such as rubber, petrol, tea, coffee, tobacco and chemicals would have to be rationed. "We would have to institute almost immediately, an entirely different economic system, a sort of internal barter system, with rigid control by the Government. Taxation would go up immediately because the Government would have to meet greatly increased costs in defence and special social services. "We would have to face the position squarely and, forgetting for the moment the future, use as much of our savings as possible for capital expenditure for war purposes. We looked up the present income tax scale. Britain, with a total revenue of £900,000,000, collects an average of 4/- in. the pound—a fifth of the national income. Australians pay at least one-seventh of the national income in tax —about 3/- in the pound over all. "At present, the professor added, "Australia spends abaut £35,000,000 on semi-goverixnent and local works of various kinds. In war time such works would be suspended and money would be diverted to war purposes. Private industry, including housing, spends at least £40,000,000 a year—that money, too, would have to go towards defence and the public debt would be increased by borrowing specifically ( for defence.

"If there is very rigid Government control, I do not think there would be a very great rise in prices but there would be some inevitable fall in our standard of living—either wages would fall or prices would rise, to some degree. It is certain to equalise the tax burden equitably, that there would have to be special taxation on profits from investment.

"Thai, of course, is not the whole picture. It is merely an outline of the possibilities. The degree of ad-

justment of our economic system depends entirely on our degree of isolation. At the very best I foresee partial blockade of Australia and vast disorganisation of shipping. Even the fleet at Singapore will not prevent that. "It will be no picnic for anyone, this war, if it comes. Every living Australian must pay for it, and pay dearly—he, and his children, and probably his children's children. And what is even more unfortunate, our distance from the rest of the world will not help us— we will be in it, more or less, and much more than we were in the last one."

We both stood at the window, sombred by other unspoken, wistful thoughts. Through the halfpanes came the chatter of half a dozen undergraduates, girls and boys together, as they passed with ringing laughter to yet another lecture on philosphy.