MOST EXPENSIVE MEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XV, 14 April 1900, Page 707

MOST EXPENSIVE MEN.

Although the Boer undoubtedly holds Mr Cecil Khodes responsible for the fact that his country is now at war with great Britain, we, who can take a fuller view of things, see plainly that, it is entirely to the pig-headed obstinacy of President Kruger that South Africa owes its troubles. But for him some measure of justice at least would have been done to t,he Uitlanders, and this lamentable war averted. What it is going to cost no one yet knows. Ten millions was talked of. Ten times that sum will be nearer the mark.

The great adventurer Napoleon, whose chief aim was personal ambition, is calculated to have cost Europe —.apart from unfortunate France—not less than £ 800,000,000, by far the larger portion of which came out of the pockets of the British taxpayers. In 1855, Lij Kasa, an adventurer, who had managed to become son-in-law to the then King of Abyssinia, took the name of Theodore, and proclaimed himself Negus, or King of the Kings of Abyssinia. Fired with ambition. he sent a letter to the British Government, requesting an alliance against the Turks. No reply reaching him, in revenge he imprisoned all the missionaries and other white settlers in his country, and loaded them with

chains. It cost us over four millioms to release those prisoners. There has always been a plentiful crop of adventurers in Africa. The recent Mahdi cost us little in comparison with the amount —over six millions—spent on attempting to subdue his predecessor when he had shut up Gordon in Khartoum. Arabi Pasha, who was solely responsible for the Egyptian insurrection of twenty years ago. forced us to spend £2,000.000 on an expeditionary force, besides the expense of bombarding Alexandria — another £1,250.000. That bombardment did £3,950,000 of damage, which must be added to Arabi's little account.

Occasionally the incompetence of our own generals has cost us more than money. When General Whitelocke was sent to South -America he had a force amply sufficient to take Buenos Ayres. He made his attack in eight weak columns at widely separated points. Result, utter defeat — 1,000 killed, 1,000 prisoners, and loss of almost half a continent.

Whitelocke was cashiered for his behaviour.

The Waleheren Expedition, in 1809, through the hopeless incompetence of Lord Chatham, failed miserably. Seven thousand lives and nearly five millions of money were simply pitched into the sea—or, rather, into the marshes, for nearly all our losses were from ague. The paths of peace can show one or two instances of misery, ruin, and waste quite equal to that of war. That colossal blunder the Panama Canal stands at the head of these. The Panama Caual was, if anything ever was, a one-man scheme. To Ferdinand de Lesseps, of Suez Canal fame, it owed its beginning and end. Over £60,000,000 had been spent by 1888, and a bare third of the work done. In 1890 t-he Report of Inquiry Commission decleared that ‘900,000.000 francs (£36,000,000) would be required to finish it. and this was probably under the estimate. The loss was caused by wrong estimates, bad surveying, and incompetent management. General Weyler’s brutality to the country farmers of Cuba was the direct cause of the last desperate insurrection in Cuba, which led to the Spanish War. That war cost the United States £6,000.000. The cost to Spain was £35.000,000, exclusive of loss of territory. The cost to Cuba in the way of wrecked plantations and loss of commerce—especially of her tobacco trade—is roughly estimated at £20.000.000 more. So Weyler came distinctly high. Aguinaldo, the rebel Philippine chief, seems likely to be another expensive luxury. This war—carried on at a huge distance from its base—has necessitated raising the American standing army from 27,000 to 60,000 men, and even now is costing 500,000 dollars • £ 100,000 —a week.