Ogden Evening Standard | 1911-01-28 | Page 4 | Says War is Unprofitable

SAYS WAR IS UNPROFITABLE. B Considerable interest has been aroused by a new book, called "Europe's Optical Elusion," by Norman Angell, an Englishman, in Ww which the writer makes an exhaustive argument for the abolition of MM war on the ground that it is unprofitable. Every one knows that if fli v- the world could only be persuaded that there is no money in war it HI " would soon become obsolete, and Mr. Angell is trying to prove the '1 premises. El j He calls the present view of the armament question an "optical W) illusion." Big armie3 and navies, he declares, are not a source of I profit, but of loss. War at be3t is bad business, and being such, it yl must now be abandoned. Wj He makes four points First, that the financial independence of H the different nations makes it no longer feasible for one country to Ml take the property of another as a result of war; second, that conquest If of other nations and annexation of their .territory is no longer per- missible, and that it doesn't pay, anyway; third, that war indemnities' T do not pay either, because the payment of the indemnity disturbs trade more than enough to make up; and, fourth, that armaments are a poor investment, as proved by the fact that tho smaller nations have better credit than the big military nations. The London Daily Mail, however, undertakes to puncturo all four of Mr. Angell 's propositions. None of them are true in fact, it says. Japan, for instance, made a groat gain by defeating Russia and driving her back from the Pacific and establishing herself in Korea, the Mail cites.' In the same way Germany by her victory in the Franco-Prussian war gave a great setback to her rival, France, and gave a new impetus im-petus to her own prosperity. The Mail writer thinks that if war is to be abolished it will have to be on some other grounds than those Mr. Angell advances.