| Show WARS OF A DECADE M the new york financier has been computing the coat of iho military struggles ot tho past te n years with a view to determining how they financed and the expense of the struggles in the past decade seven of the prin capal nations having a population of 70 per cent of that 0 the world wore engaged at the beginning of the decade in 1895 china and japan were at war two years later greece and turkey came into collision and had it not been for the intervention 0 the powers who were fearful of the derangement of the concert of europe greece might have met with better success in her movement in 1898 the united states and spain engaged in war from 1899 to 1902 great britain fought the bocra in south africa and japan began her war against russia in these various conflicts nearly three millions of men were engaged on both sides ot which number about one sixth were hilled or wounded and tho wars directly cost ho contesting nations tarco and a quarter billions of dollars among the indirect and hot easily computable losses resulting from these conflicts were the destruction of war material and fortifications abo financial sacrifices of tho people necessitated by the support of tholo who were made dependent augmented interest disbursements due to temporarily inflated currencies ren cies losses of territory as was the case in the war with spain tho enormous increase in national indebtedness caubet by preparations tor the conflicts thereby making compulsory augmented taxation for meeting interest on such debts and for their final and the economic loss resulting from the destruction of life and from the suspension of productive activities by nations engaged in the wars the offsets to tho direct national losses havo been the territorial acquisitions by japan resulting from the war with china and with russia which prizes however were reduced in value to a minimum through intervention in and through conces alons in the portsmouth treaty the indemnity paid by china to japan and by greece to turkey the extension of out outlying possessions as the result of our war with spain and the securing by england of valuable territory wrested from tha boers as the outcome of the war la south africa though billions of i ollars have been irretrievably lost as the direct cost of alio llio wars these conflicts have been financed hugely with new gold that is to say with additions to of J gold which were not in torm as money before tho wars began tho worlds production of this nieta during been three and a quarter the decade bas billions and it has annually increased statistics showing a steady augmentation from millions in 1893 to nearly millions last year the visible supplies of this in tho great banks of europe and in this country have been proportionately increased and the credits which have been created as the result of this accretion in production have probably amounted to an average of four billion dollars these credits have been the basis upon which temporary national borrowings have been effected for the current disbursements incident to the war and for the negotiation of external loans as well as for the procurement of material tor the prosecution ot the conflict though the needs for gold for these purposes have been greatest by the nations engaged in the wars the deficiencies in supplies of the metal at one or more bentres centres have resulted in transfers from those more abundantly provided for and thus gold equilibrium has not been seriously deranged the direct loans negotiated tor war purposes arc represented in the computable costs above noted of the conflicts amounting to three and a quarter billions of dollars or about equal to the worlds production of gold in the decade the difference between this bum and the volume of credits created may be accounted for by the fact that reserves held by the government bachs in these countries have been largely absorbed and that in addition floating indebtedness through internal borrowings or through note issues has been created in some cases notably in the orient silver has been used for the payment of troops and fcc the procurement ot food and other requirements |
