WAR COSTING US £11 A SECOND.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 255, 11 December 1914, Page 2 (Supplement)

WAR COSTING US £ll A SECOND.

ECONOMIC EAIUHQUAKE AND

IiUW WE MEET II

Some of tho economic queetions raised by the war were dealt with by Mr. Sidney Webb, l'iolevsor of I'ubLc Administration in the linversity of London. at the first of a series of lectures at the .School of Economics last month.

I'r i at v i enterpr e, he pointed out, broke down in tune ol war, heoauso it lacKcd faith cap.tal, certainty, the necessary speed, and organisation. Thus it had come a bout that in the absence of competition tho Government had bought J,ie,(X)o.lXHi worth of sugar, although six months ago 't would not r>pend ±'loo, UOK to establish a sugar beet factory, ihey had "cornered'' sugar, he said, in ■a time of national need in a way which no private enterpriso could have done. Tins year tho Government demurred to putting on the Estimates a few thousand pounds for nursing tho sick poor, and now they are spending hundreds of of pounds in killing healthy people. Hie war was costing the country £ll » second, day and night. A war like tho present was really quivalent to * Mil't of economic earthquake, upsetting everything in a new light. It was reremarkable to not'ee how the economic prejudices ol |>eople had turned round, and they wei'o expounding most outrageous doctrines. Nobody could predict to what a degree of good or evil the • orld would bo changed as a result of the war; but the change would undoubtedly bo colossal.

Air. Webb proceeded to describe tho credit system, the object of tho Moratorium, and tho service rendered to the people and the country by the Governmint in the guarantee's which it gava to tho city in the linancing and exports. Tho breakdown of private enterprise ] n times of peace, lie said, wag not bo apparent, because it did not concern the people bo much to know that so many people "ore unemployed and ill want of tood and clothes: but in times of w«» tho Government took euro that its fighting force was adequately supplied with all that was needed for the efficiency of the Army as a fighting machine.