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Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 107, 21 November 1918, Page 2

Mr N. P. Jack received word this morning that his son, who is a returned soldier residing in Wellington, had died from pneumonia supervening on influenza. Bofore the war one frequently met with attomps to convoy some idea of the size of the National Debt of the United Kingdom, which was, wo beiove, the largest sum appearing in any kind of statistical table. To-day (remarks the Christchurch Press) that sum is a comparatively small one, so enormously has the war altered the scalo of political arithmetic. I The cost of the war has been estimated at£32,000,000,000 fertile first four years, and various attempts have been made to express this sum in comprehensive terms. One American nows paper calculates that the entire cost of the American Civil War has boon duplicated every twelve weeks, and that each five weeks of the present war costs as much as the whole of the Franco-Prussian war. For 32.0'0 millions tho world coqld built 400 Panama Canals or construct 92 worldencircling railway systems with Translated into ono-dollar notes placed end to end, the money would stretch round the world 75 times. If a man were to count 32,000 million sovereigns, working eight hours a day and counting three sovereigns a second, he would not finish his job for over a thousand years.