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Show THE COST OF LIVING. j ! f The increasing cost of the things we eat and f ; wear has given rise to much discussion as to its j ; cause and cure. The increase has been notable i during the last ten years. Its cause has been va- t riously accounted for, the cause or causes ranging I ! from lack of production to extravagant expendi- f.: tures by the state and national governments. Al- j most every political subdivision of the country is I ; in debt. The city of New York has a debt that tj doubles every ten years, with no evidence that it ' will cease its doubling as long as the debt limit i3 1 1 not reached, or as long as new interpretations can : ! be placed on the laws which will permit of further borrowing and bonding. In the broader field, how- I ever, the expenditures of different nations during j the last ten years nave grown enormously. The United States has spent about a billion dollars; j Great Britain has spent in the same period some i billion, six hundred millions; France, Germany and Russia together have spent some billion, eight hundred hun-dred million, while Italy, whose industrious and frugal people are unable to subsist on her native soil, has found some $270,000,000 to spend on the construction and maintenance of her naval estab- : lishment. To sum up, those six nations during the j last ten year3 have appropriated $4,600,000,000 on j their navies, a sum so vast as to be inconceivable j and enough to bankrupt any less prodigal thing I than the earth itself. It is not likely the high cost j of living will be materially reduced until the high ! cost of our navies is somewhat reduced. And there doesn't seem to be much prospect of a reduction in the cost of maintenance of either our own or any other navy of the world. |