THE WORLD WONDER.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1917, Page 6

THE WORLD WONDER.

SOME STARTLING FACTS AND FIGURES. GREAT BRITAIN'S GREAT EFFORT. TIT,. , > The following is an excerpt from the Boston News Bureau, of Boston Mass., U.S.A., issue of Wednesday evening, January !0, 1917: - All ".lie seven '.venders of the world fade in history's page compared with the spectacle Great Britain presents to-day. v commercial nation of less than uu.Oi/J,000 people suddenly summoned to arms where no arms existed, and in less than thirty months she has a bigger army thai! history ever before recorded and a war machine in Europj that for wealth of shell, explosives, and war 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 won. <lcrs. BOTH AIR AND SEA COMMAND. Without an English aeroplane engine that co;ikl circle her own island she has vanquished the boasted Zeppelins, and is mistress of her own skies. With submarines by the hundred, threatening her coast defences, her food supplies and her commerce, she has swept nil oceans, locked the vaunted German fleet in harbor, convoyed shipments of gold across the ocean,in safety—loads of gold thar in former times would have paralysed national financial markets—made ' the English, Channel her multiple track ocean railway to Europe, with no loss by Zeppelins or submariner 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 three iimes the national debt of the United States. STILL' SUPPLYING THE WORLD. While the United States has been trying to find out how to build military '•illos in quantities, and has unfilled orders for them representor 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. binder of wonders, she has done all this, is doing it, is yet to do more, andhasnow her manufacturing, her trade relations, and her overseas commerce unimpaired. Yet alio has grabbed the trade of the world, so that her enemies are struggling on half ration'; their food, Wibber and metal supplies from the outside world practically cut off, except a3 ncV territory is taken.

Thi:i is a gigantic physical power and a trade and war power combined never before dreamed of. It nuts in the shade all that the world previously knew of Great Britain's financial uower. Nobody .dreamed two rears ago that the war cost to Great Britain wiis to he hevond five or six billions. It is to-dnv three times that sum. and Great Britain is procured to double it again. But stu-' pewlous, ami oven beyond all previous; estimates, as is this financial power, the ■ physical and mental "nwer manifested j by Great Britain is the marvel of marcels. The British Lion was lPgarded in Germany as a money bag of trade and a ivhclp of the seas. Great Britain's ability to put 10 per cent of her population ruder arms, to feed and equip her Allies, and at the came time to maintain he; credit and commerce throughout the vnvhl. was something never dreamed of within or without her Empire before fliis war. , UNCOUNTED WEALTH AND I UNMEASURED SPIRIT. No economist ever counted the wealth I :i credit, gold reserves, and securities ; uower that is now showing forth in the ; Briti-h Empire. No student of men and Illations ever pictured forth the,war spirit I of the British people, that could be so aroused in a righteous cause. No student of religious or social order ever gauged the spirit of self-sacrifice that 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 around the globe. It is not a war of kings, lords or nobles. It '■a a war in defence of all the civilisation, pence and honor 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 take t'rfl of her guns, big and little. They numbered her military men, her business men, and her idle and leisure classes;', and, outside of her navy, her wealth rf:{j her, trade she was, by a Prussian military census, as nothing. But nowhere in the world was there anything by which to measure, the slumbering soul of that people, it is fightj ing mad to-day. and getting "madder every minute. The stigma and insults to credit and honor from AVashington only increases the resolve of her people, and their faith in the invincibility of ! their righteous cause. For this they are willing to pledge everythng in sacrifice for justice upon the altar of their battle, fires. To wiiat martyred souls runs back this heritage of noble spirit only the historian of the future may attempt to answer. The purpose of the present inquiry is to answer the problem of whence England gets her human power and her mental power. •'5 THE ORDNANCE BASE, v Twenty-five years ago the tiaehincfy of England ar.d her metal workers stamped out the coins of many nations and moulded the guns, big and little, of many more. She was the ordnance maker of the world. Then Germany became her rival as a metal worker, and. setting Government bounties or 'order*, she was able, with her cheaper labor and living, to cut under the prices of free trade England. The ordnance fires of England went 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 cannon. But the foundations, in metal workers, and the old factories in this business, had not entirely disappeared when the Prussian hosts fired upon Belgium ami attempted to roll up the treaties of Eur one as scraps of paper. It was on this almost forgotten foundation that Eng land has brought forth her wealth of war material, and is organising to roll the Prussian back over the Rhine in 1017 England's icserve in man po\ er, that t hej cjjmmOTMl production,

her exports, and overseas trade while putting an army greater than that of France in the field, needs to be carofiillv studied.