Enormous Cost of Future Wars.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 11, 17 March 1909, Page 45

Enormous Cost of Future Wars.

If you are looking for a good concrete example of how science is making war more ami more costly, here it is. Torpedoes themselves are each worth a small fortune. But motorite will probably make it cost £5OOO a half hour to run a torpedo boat. It is only to be used at the supreme moment, other fuel being used under ordinary circumstances. At the crucial moment it will give the torpedo boat ami the torpedo a speed greater than an express train —at a tremendous cost. But balance against the cost, larg' as it sounds, the possible, almost certain, less deadly the warfare. The reason is not far to seek. Double the range of

your guns, fur instance, and you simply double the distance between the fighting lines. The farther the man target is from the man killer, the safer is the man-tar-get. Increase the explosive force of shells ami torpedoes, and the strength and resistance of armour plate are increased to meet them. If you doubt that war is l*»ss deadly to-day than in ancient times, compare some of the battles. Hannibal slew 4H.00) out of fiU.IMM) van.pushed Romans at Cannae. At Mukden, after many days of fighting, the Russian dead, imlud ng thos v » lost in the retreat, were barely 30.(100 out of a total number engaged of nearly 400,000. The vanquished Ru->ian . in the greatest sea fight of modern times, when Togo smashed their licet at Tsushima, lost only 10.0(H) in both killed and wounded. At Salamis tlie defeated Persians lost hundreds of th u-ands killed outright. These are not exceptions, either. After all. it is really money more than life that counts nowadays in war. The deadliest of modern man-killing devices are making war more and more impossible than are all the peace conferences combined. because they are dol’ar killing. Universal peace is the product of the inventor p/rhaps more than of the clergyman.— Arthur B. Reve in Broadway Magazine.