The Dominion. THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1915. THE WAR BILL

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2454, 6 May 1915, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1915. THE WAR BILL

.The war is now costing Britain £2,100,000 a day. This is one of the many interesting facts contained in the Budget statement of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, a summary of which will bo found in the cable messages published in another part of this issue. The war expenditure is increasing as the struggle .goes on. for the first four months it amounted to £102,000,000, and for the second four months it reached the great total of £177,000,000. The increase was no doubt mainly due to tho extension of the area of conflict caused by Turkey's participation in the struggle, to the growth of Britain's fighting forces, and to the greater intensity with which Jho operations are being pressed forward. If the conflict continues throughout the financial year Mr. Lloyd George estimates that the.cost will mount to the gigantic sum of £1,136,434,000. These arc startling figures, but almost everything connected with this war is colossal, and wc are becoming so accustomed to the idea, of vastness that our capacity for wonder is becoming exhausted. The Empire fully recognises that the struggle must be carricd to a victorious conclusion no matter what the cost may be. The money must be found, but tho greatest care should be taken to spread the burden as fairly as possible over all classes of the community. The cost of victory may be tremendous,, but what would be the cost of failure? As, Mr. Llovd'George recently remarked, there are only two alternatives before us. "At the end of this war we shall either be vassals of the German military caste, drunk with success, or we shall have broken ('militarism for ever." The British Empire, is prepared to give its last man and its last shilling in order to frustrate Germany's long-planned plot to obtain the mastery of' the

world. Sib Edward Grey speaks for the whole nation when he says that he would- rather perish than live under German conditions. When we ponder over the huge figures mentioned 'in Mb. Lloyd George's latest Budget we have the satisfaction of knowing tlia-t the war is costing Germany and Austria almost as much as it is costing the Entente Powers, and it is quite certain that Britain and her Allies are in a far better position to stand the strain than Germany, Austria, and Turkey. The financial resources of Britain are playing a wonderfully effective part in this life-and-tleath struggle. The money-power of the British Empire is undoubtedly far greater than that of Germany. An adequate supply of first-class fighting men is tlie supreme consideration; but next to man-power comes money-power. The British of the Exchequer reminds the nation that at the end of the Napoleonic wars our forefathers taxed themselves to the extent of two-sevenths of their incomes. It was the price of freedom, and they were prepared to pay it. The liberties which we enjoy to-day have been made possible by the sacrifices which the people of Britain' made' a hundred years ago. It has now become our duty to maintain and defend those liberties, and the conflict we are engaged in is one of unexampled magnitude. In a speech in Parliament on March 1 Mr. Asquith stated that the estimate for 240 days fighting worked out at £1,500,000 a day. But part of this amount was recoverable, being loans on food. After making allowance for this the net cost would be £1,200,000 a day. This was an average. The cost was not more than a million a day during the summer, but, said Mr. Asquith, it would be £1,700,000 on April 1 on the Army and Navy alone, and reckoning in the usual Army and Navy peace estimates, the cost would be £1,900,000 a day. "Call it two millions," remarked the British Premier. Mr. Lloyd George now estimates the daily expenditure at £2,100,000. The is apolconic wars, which lasted over twenty years, cost Britain £831,000,000. This represents a rate of expenditure which shrinks into complete insignificance when compared with that which the country has to provide for at the present time. The cost of the Crimean War was £70,000,000, and the South African war bill totalled £211,000,000. The combined expenditure of England and France on the Napoleonic wars (17931815) was £1,250,000,000. It is instructive to compare these figures with those for the present wav as re? cently given by Mr. Edgar Crammond at a meetintr of the Royal Statistical Society. Mr. Chammond estimates that the total of outlay and destruction in all spheres down to the end of July next—the conclusion of the first year of the warwill be £9,147,900,000. The share oE Austria and Germany will be £4,277,000,000, while the cost to the Knlentc Powers will amount to £4,870,000,000, the British Empire's share being £1,258,000,000. In comparing Mr. Ceaujioxd's figures with the expenditure on previous wars it should bo borne in mind that he includes in his' estimates destruction of property and the capitalised value of loss of 'human life, and not merely direct Government expenditure. Commenting on Mis. Cha.mmond's paper the I'ull M"ll Un.nilt> remarks that "of such statistics it may be said, as I-ohd Uoseheky did in another connection, that we cannot discuss, but only contemplate them. But Ihey should spur us on to insist that there should be no ambiguities about the victory which tliey helped to purchase.'' The Overseas Dominions, whose soni arc lliw uttvrHiijS tlinriF.plvpK uif |i glol-y ,i» tk fighUug liuss, will cwlamly

not be satisfied with anything short of a complete triumph. Nothing less than this would compensate the Empire for the tremendous sacrifices it is making.