Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 3 February 1916, Page 34

Notes

The Cost of War The cost of the war is about five millions a day, 1800 millions a year, against a total of national income of 2400 millions. The enormous significance of these figures may be seen by comparison with other wars (says an English authority): —The Crimean War —Total cost about what we are spending in two weeks. Boer War—Total cost about what we are spending in eight weeks. Twelve Years' Napoleonic War — cost less than we are spending in nine weeks. The Future of Nations The Germans are at present devoting much attention to the birth-rate question, knowing that whatever the results of the war may be the future of nations will be decided by the growth or decline of their populations. Comparing the growth of the German

population with that of Russia, they are alarmed. Whilst; Russia's population between 1897 and 1912 increased by forty-seven millions, the increase in Germany during the same period was only twelve millions. The "Russian increase was nearly four times as great as the German. Theodore Masaryk, an Austrian statistician, has calculated (says the Catholic Times) that in the year 2000 the population of Italy, now thirty-five millions, will be fifty-eight millions; of France, now thirty-nine millions, sixty-four millions; of Austria-Hungary, now fifty-one millions, eightyfour millions; of England, now thirty-six and a-half millions, one hundred and forty-five millions; of Germany, now sixty-five millions, one hundred and sixtyfive millions; and of Russia, now one hundred and seventy millions, four hundred millions in Europe and five hundred millions in Asia. The Germans are therefore afraid of being so outnumbered in the years to come that they will be unable to hold their own against the Slavs, especially as the tendency of the German birth-rate for some time past has been to decline. They are taking measures to prevent the decline. The Fate of Armenia The barbarous and entirely unprovoked treatment which the Armenians have received at the hands of their Turkish oppressors was the subject of a largely attended meeting in Liverpool early in December. The principal resolution was moved by Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., who said that the massacres were not inspired by religious fanaticism, which, as they knew in the history of the Turkish Empire, had often accounted for one of those campaigns of wholesale murder. They were systematic, political, and unprovoked. The responsibility did not lie at the door of the Turk alone, and they took place in districts remote from the battlefield. The speaker gave a moving and detailed description of the sufferings of the Armenians, a nation with whom the standard of intellectuality and education was high. The Armenians had prospered in many parts of the world. They had been the brains to a large extent of Turkey and Russia. Their intellectuality, in fact, was one of the counts in the indictment against them. The figures of the massacre were as yet a matter of conjecture. Some people put the loss of life at 500,000, others at 800,000, but at any rate the determination was to destroy a whole race. They have not succeeded, and no sovereign of ours or of our Allies would ever be called upon to shake the bloody hands of the rulers of the Turkish Empire. One of them had boasted that in nine months they had exterminated more Armenians than Abdul Hamid had done in twenty-five years. The Turkish Minister who made that boast had just received the highest decoration which the Kaiser had it in his power to bestow.