WHAT WAR WOULD MEAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 215, 9 March 1912, Page 8

WHAT WAR WOULD MEAN.

THE FINANCIAL ASPECT. INEVITABLE RUIN TO ENGLAND AND GERMANY, Mr. .Tosiah C. -Wedgenvod, of Staffordshire, has written a remarkable article for the Manchester Guardian, putting forward the commercial aspects of a modern war. Mr. W"edgerwood says: "One rather gathered from Sir Edward Grey's speech that he d~d contemplate was as a possibility—say a 10 to 1 chance during the next three years—that he really was nervous about possible action on Germany's part, and that, serene in the confidence of right and of superior Dreadnoughts, lie and the country might face the unknown with true British phlegm. "That is, of course, all right, but there is another side. Old European wars were waged between countries that were mainly agricutural. Agricultural labor does not depend to any extent on credit or on cheapness of capital. Since 1870 Europe has become an industrial hive based on credit alone. "There was a crash when Roosevelt merely said rude things about the trusts; even during the latest war scare, in which few believed, the run on the banks in Germany was serious, the slump marked. Every year that passes emphasises the international character of capital and credit. We suffered as much as the Americans from the run on the Knickerbocker Trust, so did Germany.

"If there is real war, the fact that the Governments will want to raise money (three per cent. Consols at Oo were talked of) will not be by any means the most serious thing for the money market or for trade.

"A contraction to two-thirds in the face value of shares is bound to ensue, with its concomitant rise in the bankrate to almost any figure, and must : n any case start a run on the banks.

BANKS WOULD ACT PROMPTLY. "The banks will call iii all overdrafts on which manufacturing business is largely done, and ljefuse to discount bills.

"The first bank will go in three days, the Bank Charter Act will be suspended in six. and all payments will be made in depreciated paper, even if a general moratorium is not declared and all banks closed.

•'Meanwhile what will be the course of manufacture? Bills will be protected, accounts remain unpaid, orders cancelled with self-accumulating celerity. Ho one will be believed solvent. Those workmen who are not dismissed will only be exchanged for food. Throughout the industrial 'quadrilateral—Birmingham, Northampton, Sheffield and Preston—there will be bloody bread riots in a fortnight, and when they have got all the food in the towns they will wander into the country, murderin<?»the farmers and eating the beasts. TRAINS WOULD CEASE TO RUN. "Even the men on the railways cainot work when their families are starving. The railways and posts will gradually cease to run, and that means absolute anarchy.

"Whether the gold reserve is 14,000,OOOdol. or twice that amount, even if the whole national credit be behind the bank, nothing can save its solvency if the public begin to "run" and hoard. And with the banks goes the whole nf our civilisation.

"I wish I could see a flaw in my argument, but if it is in any way sound" it is obvious that our number 'of Dreadnoughts is a matter of little importance.

"Now all this affects Germany ju*fc as much as ourselves—indeed) it 'affects neutrals, too, to the same extent, m so far as they are manufacturers. Surely it is worth enquiring into an:l bringing to Germany's notice. "They say that here as well a? in Germany it is only the wealthy (.{ass that wants to fight. Well, if thej do fight, they make up their minds, 'that from that time no more rent or interest will be paid, and that if they do not fly the country they will probably get, killed. They are children plaving with a dynamo.

"In the next great war there will be 110 dying under the limelight, with thrilling accounts in the papers. Only starvation and murder, and the birth 'of a new world in which those who are now ou top will have only a sporting chance of finding themselves there again."