WHAT WAR WOULD MEAN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 54, 28 October 1912, Page 2

WHAT WAR WOULD MEAN.

A lurid picture of what war with Germany would mean to us is painted in the Nation (London). In the first place the whole of the North Sea commerce would be disorganised. Only neutral ships could carry goods. Britain’s exports of 40 millions to Germany and the corresponding imports would be reduced to a fraction. Hull would be timberless and shipless, all our north-eastern ports cut off from their chief communications, the Grimsby fishing fleet idle, London cut off from the cast and the north. There would be an appalling slump on the Stock Exchange. A huge loan must be raised, and Consuls would drop to 60 in a week or two. A host of merchant and financial houses would be ruined, and it would be strange if all our great banks survived the ruin of so many customers. A quarter of the population of the east coast, at a low estimate, would be unemployed, and the Yorkshire mills would be either closed or at half-time while the war lasted. And after the struggle the misery and social disorder would certainly destroy the Government responsible for the war, and would probably destroy the Constitution.