THE COST OF THE WAR.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1386, 25 July 1878, Page 3

THE COST OF THE WAR.

The St. Petersburg correspondent of the "Times," writing on May 11th, comes to the following conclusion as to the cost to Eussia of the war with Turkey : We may estimate roughly the cost of the war as follows: First comes the foreign loan of £15,000,000, and then we have the following sums in paper currency —Surplus of previous years, 40,000,000 roubles ; State Bank Bonds, 100,000,000 roubles; Eastern Loan, 200,000,000 roubles; Exchequer Bonds, 100,000,000 roubles; new paper money issued, 340,000,000roubles—total, 780,000,000 roubles. There may seem to be a diecrepmcy between these figures and the figures quoted above, but it is only apparent. In estimating the amount which the internal loans withdrew from circulation, wo had to take the amount actually realised, but in considering the cost of the war we must take these loans at their nominal value, for the payment of which the Government has made itself responsible. If we take the foreign loan of £15,000,000 as equal to 150,000,000 roubles, we find that the acknowledged cost of the war had reached at the beginning of April 930,000,000 roubles, and as the extra* ordinary expenses amount to at least 2,000,000 roubles daily, we may conclude that at the present moment a good milliard roubles has been spent. Unless, therefore, part of the war indemnity be recovered from the Porte, Eussia will have gained from a successful war a financial burden considerably more than half the war indemnity imposed by Germany on France by the peace of Versailles! At first sight this seems very hard, for wo have of late become accustomed to the principle so ably advocated by Prince Bismarck, that the victor should amply indemnify himself for his pecuniary losses ; but it may be questioned whether this principle should be recognised and consecrated by European law. After the Crimean war and after the Franco-Austrian campaign no pecuniary indemnity was exacted, so that respectable precedents may be found in support of the opposite principle, that the victor as well as the vanquished should be fined for breaking the peace.