WHAT THE WAR MEANS IN MONEY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1517, 2 March 1916, Page 4

WHAT THE WAR MEANS IN MONEY.

In the December number of the Nineteenth Century Magazine, Mr J. E. Barker shows that the Franco-German war of 1870-71, which lasted nine months, cost Germany ; the Panama Canal, the greatest engineering undertaking the world has seen, cost the United States, in ten years, ; the Boer war, which lasted three years, cost us ; and Great Britain is spending on the present war every two weeks almost as much as the total cost of the Panama Canal, and every two months she is spending considerably more than she did during the whole of the Boer war. It has cost us so far—that is, up to the time Mr Barker was writing— The national capital of Great Britain is usually estimated at about 000. The struggle may eventually swallow a sum equal to one-third of the national capital, if not more. Interest will have to be paid on the gigantic war debt; and, in addition, untold millions will be required every year for the support of the crippled and incapacitated veterans and for the widows and orphans. Before the war budgets of per year seemed monstrous ; alter the war, budgets of may seem modest. To bear this there must be strenuous labour and perhaps also laborious thrift, accompanied, Mr Barker suggests, by increased production and the reorganisation of industry, it may be on American lines.