WAR PARADOXES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1684, 10 March 1917, Page 2

WAR PARADOXES.

THE Germans claim (hat they can continue the war indefinitely, because their country produces all (he munitions and provisions necessary and because (hey borrow only from themselves. The statement is not itself true, because cotton, copper, indiarubber, lea, coffee, and several other indispensables must come in from other lands, besides a good deal of wool. The home-made nilrates for manure and explosives are very expensive. Meal, milk, and eggs will soon only he a tradition.

Eats of all kinds are getting more and more; unprocurable. The second statement re finances is equally misleading. Let us illustrate: A German manufacturer makes a shell for £5 entirely of German materials. It is bred away and is gone. ' That is £5 lost in labour and material. You can’t get away fmm that conclusion. An English manufacturer makes a chaff-cutter for £5 and sells it to an Argentine merchant for £5 .10,s. If he had not been making the chaffcutter he could have made a shell like the German did; but the seas are open and trade goes on as usual with him. He preferred to make a saleable commodity. The shell the army wants it buys in America lor £5 and pays by a debenture. It is tired away and also lost. The position, then, is that the Argentine owes England £5 and a profit and England owes America £5. Can any sane man say Germany is therefore better off because self-contain-ed and cut off from trading? Then as to war borrowing in Germany; Better cal! is confiscation at once; that is the real name. ’When socialism comes there, as come it will, it will find things pretty well prepared. Personal rights in body and soul as well as in estate will have ceased to exist. When the war began (he idea was that the millions subscribed would be repaid out of the indemnities paid by defeated France and England. The German nation knows better now. Burdensome taxation for many years will be absolutely unuviodable by them as well as all the other belligerents.