The Daily News SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1905. NOTE AND COMMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7736, 11 February 1905, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1905. NOTE AND COMMENT.

Under the title of " Financial Mobi- I ligation," Colonel von i THE Renauld, the Berlin cor- i COST respondent of the Morn- 1 OF A WAR. ing Post, calls atten- : tion in the columns of ; the IJank Archiv to the disastrous effects which the present state of the ! Bourse Law might exercise on Ger- i - many in the event of the outbreak I of a great European war. He points out that the experiences gathered tinring the Franco-German war render 1 it possible to gauge with some accuracy the cost of a campaign on a large scale. The expenses of that I war amounted to 6s per man daily. To-day the German Empire is in a i position to mobilise 4,880,000 of completely trained troops and !>,- 360,000 of, for the most part, untrained men. At 6s per man the daily cost of such mobilisation would amount for one day to 07.),000, for one month to £02,250,000, and for one year to £l,lOO,- • . 000,000. For the "Triple Alliance ' I the cost of a complete mobilisation ■■ would reach in one year the enor- I mous total of £1,850,000,000. It j would, the author observes, naturally j be impossible to raise anything ai>proacliiug this sum. lint the dllliculty would be almost as great for Germany if the Government decided to be content with one-half of the ' total numbers which it would be le- j gaily permissible to mobilise. The linancial resources of the Fatherland ' would, he says, be unequal to the j task' of raising in one year the sum ' of £550,000,000. It might, how- j ever, be practicable for Germany to mobilise one quarter of her total for- ' ces—two and a-half millions of troops at a yearly cost of £275,000,000. \ " But," he asks, " how would it be , possible for the Empire, in the mo- 1 nient of peril, to procure the necessary funds ?" Here Colonel von Renauld touches the point which, in his eyes, constitutes the great danger which wouM confront Germany in. the event of war. The Bourse Law, which amounts to the practical prohibition of negotiations in futures, and the extremely high Stamp Tax, - would, he says, prevent easy arbit- ■' i rage transactions, by which alone it would lie possible to dispose without 1 enormous loss of the many foreign values which are in German hands, and to import into the country the immense capital which they represent.