THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1913.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 23 October 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1913.

According to a recent issue of "Life," the Bulgarian Minister of Finance recently said in rueful accents "Wars have become very dear." The Minister went on. *o explain that up to that moment <the war—which only lasted a few weeks—had cost the allies—*nd at that moment they were still "allies"—more than,four times their annual Budgets in direct cash outlay. To that is to be added the yet more dreadful arithmetic of slain lives. Since has come the second war betwixt the 4 lies themselves, which has practically caoti&ted all the gains of the original struggle. Yes. War has beco-ne very expenr sive. But under the existing condition of things, peace—or what we call peace—is almost as expensive as war. Mr Lloyd George, in a recent speech, announced that Great Britain is this year expending upon her navy a sum exceeding that spent on all the navies of the world in 1886. The combined expenditure of the Great Powers on armaments' for, land and sea is £400,000,000. But te realise what a break-neck race in warlike expenditure the Great Powers are engaged in, we have to take a series of years.. During the past twentyvfive years the expenditure on the naval armaments of England and Germany has amounted to close on a thousand! million pounds. In 1889-90 the two Nations were oontent -with a total of

£18,509,055, equivalent to £355,943 every week. In 1913-14, however, their naval expenditure is no less than £69,197,170, representing an average outlay of £1,330,715 a week. This, it will be observed, is only half. —or even less than half—of the actual expenditure on armaments, since it otoly covers naval expenditure. Finance is a pecret, but a very mighty force in the great politics of the world, and it is known that a group of financiers ..has, more than once within the la,st two years, arrested war. The nations cannot mobilise and march without the help of an immediate and enormous supply of cash; and when the cash cannot be found, the mobilisation is postponed. But there are many signs, which show that the financial resources of the Great Powers are breaking down under the strain of the present competition in Dreadnoughts and battalions. The last German loan of £11,250,000 was a failure, riot quite half being subscribed. The French Budget, just laid before the Chamber, shows a nominal surplus—which it would need a microscope to discover—of £2000; ap a matter of fact, it is stated there is a deficit on the year of £43,000,000. .The logic of the pocket certainly reinforces the appeals of both reason and' conscience in favour of an arrest of the present intolerable expenditure on preparations for war.