THE SINEWS OF WAR.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2921, 26 June 1878, Page 2

THE SINEWS OF WAR.

The British revenues for the year ending March 31st show a surplus of over £600,000 sterling, instead of the deficit which was expected. The London Times explains this as the result of certain special and temporary causes, but the fact itself, like the resignation of Lord Derby, will doubtless " surprise " official circles in ' t. Petersburg and strengthen the poii(.ion of Locd Beaconsfield at home. If one of these facts goes to show the Bussi an s that England will not patiently submit to the virtual establishment of a Russian protectorate over the dismembered Turkish empire, the other will tend

to sharpen their perception of the enormous financial disadvantage at, which GreatBritain holds them at this important crisis in the story of both nations. o * * When the financial strength of -England is fully called out to support such a war as a war with Russia for the control of the Eastern question must inevitably be, Russia, even though unexhausted by such a sore, struggle as she has just been wag* ing, may well hesitate to grapple with sinews so tremendous. A paper has. just 'been laid before the Statistical Society in \ England by Mr Giffen, in which, the. sub* jects of the wealth of England and of the"; recent accumulations' of capital in the"" United Kingdom are considered carefully and at leng^i, and with results which hare startled even those Englishmen" who had thought.' >iemselves most familiar with

the financial history and condition of their _ country. Mr Giffen finds, for example, in regard to the growth of capital in Great Britain, than in the ten years between 1865 and 1875 the capital of the country was increased by the enormous sum of £2,400,000,000, or about twelve thousand millions of dollars. In 1865 the capital of ihe empire was £6,030,060,000. In 1876 it was £8,500,000,000. In other" words, Eng- - land has been adding to her capitalised' * wealth or her national estate at the tremendous rate of £210,000,000 a year. And whereas the gross assessed income of Great Britain at the. beginning of the century, when she. was carrying on her great wars with Napoleon I, was but" £115,000,000, and in 1855, at the time of the Crimean war, was but £308,000,000, it had risen in 1865 to. £396,000^000, and in 1876 rose to £571,000,000. These figures, as Mr Giffen says, are" bewildering " in their amounts, and nothing in the way of political economy can ?be more important than a thorough investigation of the causes which, have led to suctfeolossar results.—New York World.