THE INCREASING COST OF WAR.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 22, 11 July 1868, Page 5

THE INCREASING COST OF WAR.

In these days of gigantic wars, we are scarcely allowed time to calculate their tremendous expense. A few facts may, however, be noted down, by which something, not of an estimate, but of an idea, may be arrived at as to the vastly increased cost of warfare now and in the days of our- fathers and grandfathers. One point of comparison is, that the armies we fight with are enormously greater- than they used to be. This is awing, in part, to our improved facilities, for. the transport of troops, materials, and the commissariat. Railways do now, and, do far more rapidly and cheaply, what bullocks and waggons did for Frederick the Great and the Duke of Wellington. In all the chief battles of the Seven Years' War, the Prussians never had more than "JQ^OOO men in the field, and ' very rarely half that number. In only two or three cases did the aggregate of the combatants on both sides reach 100,000. Even in the early battles of Napoleon, the forces engaged were comparatively small. Before- Wagram he never had more than 100,000 men in the field ; at Marengo he had not 30,000. It was not till the day of his downfall approached that he began to, deal with, corps d'arme'e as numerous and colossal as those with which the wars of our days are making us familiar. At Borodino and Dresden 250,000 wene engaged, and at Leipsec, if figures can be trusted, not far from 500,000. The British force with which our great Duke won his Peninsular victories only reached 50,000, and his entire army, even reckoning Spaniards and Portuguese, seldom much exceeded that number. At the crowning victory of Waterloo the forces on both sides were under 140,000, and of these not onethird were English. Compare these armies with the 300,000 who fought at Solferino, the 420,000 at Sadowa, and the multitudes, often exceeding 250,000, with which the Americans tried the terrible issues of their civil controversy, and the increase in recent times will be obvious at once. If we compare the cost of the arms and artillery and their amunition now in use with the ruder and cheaper weapons which contented us in the last war, some of the figures are very startling. The old calculation for a man-of-war used to be £1,000 a gun ; a three decker cost, therefore, Lloo,ooo or £120,000. A first-class iron-plated, vessel cannot be completed under £500,000 ; and some of our experimental ships costnearly twice that sum. A Minie or an Enaeld rifle, with its cartridge, is nearly five times as expensive as the old Brown Bess. Even before conversion into a breach-loader an Enfield (complete) costs upwards of £5 ; the old musket, when manufactured wholesale, cost £1. The rifled 12-pounder now in favor for field batteries costs £90, and each shell it fires 4s. The brass 9-pounder, which it superseded, cost £80, and its shell 3s. But as this would be worth as old metal LSO, while the iron gun would scarcely sell for anything, the true comparative figures would be L9O against L3O. Lastly, the 68-pounder, formerly in use for fortifications and shore batteries, cost LIOO, its carriage and slide another LIOO, and its shot Is. The Armstrong 9-inch 12-ton gun costs L 1,200, and its iron carriage and slide L3OO more ; while the steel shell it fires cost L 9 each. The Palliser shell, which will probably supersede these, can be made for 455. If the more costly missile be used, every shot we fire in the next war from our great embrasures will be worth a LlO note.