STAGGERING WAR BILL.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 November 1917, Page 4

STAGGERING WAR BILL.

Recently Mr. Bonar Law asked for the twentieth vote of credit, bringing the total voted uy 'Parliament since the war began to £5,092,000,000. At the I resent rate of expenditure, another year of war will add a further £2,500,000,000 to this huge sum, making a colossal total of £8,102,000,000. Since the outbreak of war there have been three budget statements, and in each the cost of carrying on the'struggle has been hopelessly under-estimated. Mr. Law had to announce the other week that the actual war expenditure had exceeded his estimate of May last by £1,237,000 a day. We can have no security whatever that the present daily coßt of £6,648,000 will not continue steadily to increasa Certainly if it is found necessary to conduct a great campagn in Italy with British troops we must expect it to do so, perhaps reach the huge daily total which was attained during May of this year when no less than £7,457,000 were •pent every twenty-four hours on the war. It is disquieting, as pointed out by Mr. Alfred Stead in Stead's Review, to find that, although the United States is assisting our Allies financially, Great Britain is still compelled to find almost as much money for them as in the past. That is, of course, explained by their increasing inability to stand the financial strain themselves, and their increasing dependence upon Great Britain and America. ' There is one matter which is not made clear by Mr. Bonar Law, yet it is obviously an important one, if we are to arrive at a true estimate of the cost of the war. The United States is financing our huge purchases in America, is paying, that is to say, Americas manufacturers for goods they are sup> plying to Great Britain, and is debiting the British Government with the amount in the form of a loan. Mr., Law, in asking for the vote of credit, gave particulars of how money had been spent, actually paid out. . But as America is now lending us the money , wherewith to settle our obligations in the United .States, it is no longer necessary for us to find the money by vote of credit our> selves. Do, therefore, our purcßases in America find place in Mr. Law's estimates or not? During September and half of October the amount of money lent Great Britain 'by the American Government amounted to £1,200,000 a day at least. If due account has not been taken of this then the total daily expenditure of Great Britain on the war is £7,850,000, not £6,650,000. It is! quite clear in any case that had the United States not come in Mr. Law would have had to ask for £500,000,000 instead of only £400,000,000 to carry him on until the end of the year. It is a fairly safe thing to assume that, if the United States had not arrived on' the scene to lend £1,400,000,000 to the Entente Powers, Great Britain would have had to find the bulk of that money during the last six months, would, that is, have had to meet an additional charge of no less than £7,000,000 every day.