OMINOUS "PROSPERITY."

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 19, 24 January 1916, Page 3

OMINOUS "PROSPERITY."

GREAT BRITAIN’S OUTLOOK

Some people are asking, "How is it that the war has brought such amazing prosperity to the working classes? As soon as war was declared we were told that a time of great privation and misery would, follow. There was the National Relief Fund raised to alleviate this distress. Over £5,000,000

was collected. We never hear of anyone being given relief from this fund.” All very true. The thought which led to the National Relief Fund was wrong. The money will be needed aftek the war, and very badly needed, but not now. There is money to burn aljl over the country-—apparently. At all events, it is being spent openliandedly by the working- classes in general, as well as by some of those employers and sh a rehold drse and middlemen who are profiting from war contracts.

The' money is being circulated be

cause materials aire required for the troops on, a scale which nobody dreaded of before the war. The War Office prepared for an expeditionary force of 120,000. To-day, 3,500,000 is a more likely figure. And the expenditure on this vast army is not merely 1 thirty times greater than anticipated. It is more likely to be a hundred times greater, in view of the ammunition wastage which we now know to be essential. Not only has England to supply all the multiudinous munitions of war for her own troops and fleets, but also, to a large extent, for Russia, France, Servia, Montenegro, and Italy. That is the bedrock reason why money is so plentiful just now. The Government pays out to the contractors; the contractors to their working: force; the 1 workers to the retail shops, amusement places, and so forth; the latte),' to the wholesalers and manufacturers, who make the goods they need; and then on again to th e workers employed by the manufacturers.

The writer knows’ of a case where an old man of 70, formerly just existing on a pension of 5/ a week, is now at work and earning £2 a week. And a lad who earned Id/ a week is now making £2 5/. These instances could be extended indefinitely.

If the money could all lie kept inside these islands it would, of course, be an ideal state of affairs. But our money is not being kept here. It is running about abroad, or rather, it is racing out like water thorough a broken lock gate. It is going, in the first place, to Flanders, to the Dardanelles, the Persian Gulf, East Africa, West Africa and to the North Sea, where the Grand Fleet cruises waiting for the day of battle. Millions of meVi, doing no productive work in times of peace, have to be clothed and fed on a scale which, to many of them, approaches luxury. Their uniforms, boots, and under-

clothing wear out at an appalling rate. Their accoutrement has to be renewed frequently. They are burningup the money without producing the wealth thev normally create in peace time.

Theft, take cartridges and shells amr

all the explosive devices of moder.-, war. We road of 300,000 shells being fired off in an hour. A small private factory making 2,000 shells a week is doing hard work. Yet the output of this and 31 other factories for a whole month may be shot away in a single hour of battle! again. The wastage in

cars in enormous. Anyone living near the Thames can see barge loads of cars, in large wooden crates, being unloaded daily. Off they go to unknown parts, to be employed foil’ the purposes of war. Aeroplanes arc costly luxuries. They are being used up regardless of cost. Hospital supplies. Those, again, total up to millions of pounds, all being fed into th c fuirnace of war.

A huge fleet of merchant ships which wonM normally be earning money in trade, is now kept at the disposal of the _Admiralty for the purposes of transport. Another big list of smaller vessels is constantly patroling ou>- shores and trade routes. Ail waste.

Yet another great money sink is the bottom of the ocean. Every time a German submarine torpedoes and sinks a vessel, the value of the ship and its cargo has gone for -ever. But even these expenditures, vast as .they aire, do not sum up the ways in which wealth is racing out of the country.

W e are buying supplies from Amur- j iea and other neutral countries to the tune of hundreds 1 of millions of I pounds. They o,te pitchforked into j the furnace, and they have to be paid j for. Most assuredly they have to bo 1 paid for —sooner or later. At present we arc only paying - for I them on paper. England, as a nation, is living “on tick,” to use a homely phrase. America just now is ready | and eager to .s>?ll us all the goods we | want, and to take temporary payment in paper. The credit of Great Britain is so good that her paper promises are gladly accepted.

But this will not go on indefinitely. Afte'r the war, or perhaps sooner, America may demand, and with perfect justice, that we pay her in gold cr in goods. We cannot pay her in gold. The Bank of England only keeps £53,000,000 in the vaults, and the gold reserves of the other banks ar e comparatively small. We could pay her partly in the stocks and shares of American railways, and in foreign Government bonds held here.

The main payment, however, will have,'ho be in manufactured goods, and we are rot making them now cveii to the normal extent for our ex- • port tirade. This is a fact shown clearly by the Board of Trade returns. During the last six months —January to June — wo bought over £33,000,000 worth of goods more than usual, and sold £80,000,000 less than usual. In other word, we owe to foreign, countries for those six months of trading over £133,000,000. We and our children will) hav e to 1 produce goods in the years after the

war to pay for that, as well as for the vast quantities of munitions manufactured at home and burnt up in the furnace of war. But the immediate conclusion is-

evidcnt. The present wav of pirosprity is entitirdly artificial. It Avill collapse when peace is signed. Not one of our statesmen, ' bankers, and great merchants has any illusions left on the subject.

Peace will be followed by a terrific slump all over Europe. Hard and dour times lie ahead of us. That is way the nation is being pleaded with to save for a rainy day. The National Relief Fund will be as a drop in the ocean of relief needed, unless the

I workers earning good money to-day ar far-sighted enough to lay lay * large proportion of it in the Savings Bank or in the War Loan. Let no one delude himself with trie notion that is is "good for trade,” in those times, to spend money royally. This is an idea fostered by selfish traders. Money spent means material of food and clothing wasted. That material, in the raw state, conus mainly from abroad. It will hav e to be paid for Jater, when the nation has ceased to live-'"on tick,” and its foreign creditors demand actual payment. Money saved will help to win the war, and, at the same time, will provide for the hard days to follow — Answers.