THE WORLD WONDER

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 10 March 1917, Page 5

THE WORLD WONDER

(Excerpt from the Boston News Bureau of Boston, Mass., U.8.A., of Wednesday, January 10th, 1917.) SOME STARTLING FACTS AND FIGURES the seven wonders of the ■uorld fade on history’s page compared with the spectacle Great Britain presents to-day. A commercial nation of ess than 50,000,000 people suddenly summoned to arms where no arms existe , and in less than 30 months she has a bigg e? army than history ever before recorder and a war machine in Europe that for wealth of shell, explosives and n ar power, is the amazement of the Germans, who had taken ten times thirty months to prepare for the attack. But this is only the beginning of wonders. *' BOTH AIR AND SEA COMMAND Without an English aeroplane engine that could circle her own Island she has vanquished the boasted Zeppelins and is mistress of her own skies. With submarines by the hundreds, threatening her coast defences, her food supplies, and her. commerce, she has swept all oceans, locked the vaunted German fleet in harbour, convoyed shipments of gold across fh e ocean in safety—loads of gold that would in former times have paralyzed national financial market*— made the English Channel her. multiple track ocean,railway to Europe with no loss by Zeppelin or submarine; fought in Africa, at the Canal, at the Dardanelles; grappled with the Turk and the Bulgar; changed generals and admirals in command; changed Cabinets; fed the armies’’ of France; given arms to Russia; maintained the armies and the Governments of Belgium and Serbia and altogether, advanced to; her war allies three thousand million dollars, or tfyree times the debt of the United States.

STILL SUPPLYING-THE WORLD While the United States has been trying to find out how to build military rifles in quantities and has unfilled orders for them representing hundreds of millions of dollars, England has been turning out rifles by the million for herself and her allies, cannon by the thousand, boots and coats by the million for herself and her. allies, and, wonder of wonders, she has done all this, is doing it, is yet to do more, and has now her manufacturing, her trade relations and her overseas commerce unimpaired. Yet she has grabbed the trade of the 'world, so that her enemies are struggling on half rations; their food, rubber, and metal supplies from the outside : world practically , cut off except as new territory is taken.

This is as, gigantic physical power and a trade and war power combined never before dreamed of. It puts in the shade all that the world previouesly knew of , Great Britain’s financial power. Nobody dreamed two years ago that the war cost to Britain was to be beyond five or. six billions. It is today three times that sum and Great Britain is ..prepared to double it again. But stupendous and even beyond all previous estimates, as is this financial power, the! physical and metal power manifested' by Great Britain is the marvel of marvels. The British Lion was regarded in Germany as a money bag of trade and a whelp of the seas. Great Britain’s ability to put 10 per cent of hey population underarms, to feed and equip her allies and at the same time to maintain her credit and commerce throughout the world was something never dreamed of within or without her empire before the war. > UNCOUNTED WEALTH AND UN MEASURED SPIRIT No economist ever counted the wealth in credit, gold reserves and securities power that 4 is now showing forth in the British Empire. No student of men and nations ever pictured forth the war spirit of the British people chat could be so roused in a righteous cause. No student of religion or social oidqi even gauged the spirit of self-sacrifice lhat is now lighting the path of the nation in war. This is the people "s war. It is the war of the democracy that has built the British Empire round the globe. It is not a vtar of kings, lords or. nobles. It is a war in defence of all the civilisation. peace and honoqr for which England has stood and in which she has made progress for. more than a hundred

years. • - The Prussians could measurably measure the wealth of England., count her population, and make toll of hen guns, big and little. They numbered her military men, her business men, and her idle gnd leisure classes; and outside of her navy, her wealth and her Tirade, she was by a Prussian military census as nothing. But. nowhere in the world has there anything by which to measure sie slumbering soul of that people. If is fighting mad to-day. and getting madder every minute. The stigmas and insults to credit and honour from Washington only increase the resolve of her people and their faith of the invincibility of tbeir righteous cause. Bor this they are willing to; pledge everything in sacrifice for justice upon ,the altar of their battle firea. To what martyred souls run back this heritage of uoble spirit only the historian-iof the future may attempt to answer. The purpose of the present inquiry is to answer the problem of

i ,ri rrpfc her human power whence England ge and her metal power. . qF THE °Ct - rUm. ‘ lw f%zrii net metal worKery of England o£ ma ny naers stam * e * the guns big and lions an gh e was the little ° f Taker of the world. Then became her rival as a metal Germany government booncheaper labour and living to cut under 116 ’Tan* England -nt The ordnance hres *» i( d out except for navy guns and made in Germany” invaded the Island and was stamped over the world on everything from cutlery to rifles and cann°But the foundations, in metal workers and the old factories in this business. had not entirely disappeared -when the Prussian hosts fired upon Belgium and attempted to roll up the treaties of Europe as scraps of paper. It was on this almost forgotten foundation that England has brought back her wealth of war material and is organising to roll the Prussian back over the Rhine in 1917. England’s reserve in man-power that can maintain her commercial pro Auction, her exports and overseas trade while putting an army greater than that of France in the field needs to be carefully studied. ENGLAND FEEDING AND FIGHTING. Germany is living ,on 30 per cent, capita of what it was consuming before the war. But England is consuming and fighting to the extent that her physical force is increased by far more than 30 per cent. The whole nation is fightiag, men, women, and children. There is nothing else thought of, talked of, or worked for, throughout the whole country. All the leisure classes, men and women, are one way or another in the war. The women are joining in the ranks of labour and all labour is to-day for the country with everything in production, trade and commerce locked in with the war issue.

England did not waken to the .war power that comes through cutting out luxuries so soon as Germany, but she is on the road to just as thorough a conservation of all forces. All the nations ar e in the struggle for economic existence Fiat fighting forces may be increased. Germany and England are ‘rather ashamed of it; Russia and France ar e proud of it. The shutting up of bar rooms, the closing of places «f amusement, the closing of cafes' and The shutting off of lights at ninethirty all make for increased manpower and greater war efficiency. It is not only a financial and a metal but a social and economical struggle in Europe such as the' world has never dreamed of, and of which the people of the United States have almost no c^fiiprehension, THE PEOPLE AND THEIR RESOURCES.; Formerly, armies fought battles and the war was wherever the armies moved. To-day, five hundred million people are arrayed in battle and organising to win in war. They are organising in clothing, food, drink, the discarding of luxuries, increase in the energies and hours of labour and in the mutual burdens of all forms of taxation. Any excess profit is promptly taxed. In England more than two billion a year or one quarter the cost is being raised by taxation. Grains are ■being ground more Coarsely with the result that in bulk they produce 25 per cent, more, a small percentage of nutriment is lost and, the food being richer in nutrition, consumption per capita is diminished without bread cards or other German regulations. In all fighting countries luxuries are being steadily diminished. Cream, fat, sugar, wines, expensive meats and fruits are being steadily reduced in consumption. Champagne is forbidden in Russia; It was never at so low a price in France. The whole world is coming into new civilisation, a new manhood and a new womanhood” and a new strength for both war and peace; and from Washington to San Francisco there appears to be little comprehensfon of the issue and the economic results that must inevitably flow therefrom.