THE COST OF MODERN WARS.
By C. P. Bollman
(C. P. Bollman in the Gospel Herald.) “DURING the last century,” says Robert Gordon Butler in the Home Magazine, “the art of war has ‘shared in all improvements. But improvements in ‘the art of war have not reduced the cost to those ‘indulging in it.” “This fact, tho,” adds Mr. Butler, “has not ‘lessened the number of wars in the nineteenth century. No other ten decades of history cover so ‘many great conflicts.” “What have the wars of the warlike nineteenth century cost?” asks the writer whom we quote. Only an estimate can be made, and even in making that, certain narrow limits of work must be marked out. For example, the indirect cost of only a few wars can be found; therefore the indirect cost must be left out of consideration. Again, the cost of the army and navy of a country in peace must not be included in the cost of war. With these as rules, some sort of estimate may be made of the expenditure on warfare during the last century. The direct cost of the principal wars of the century is then given, as follows:— Napoleonic wars ................................ $3,289,000,000
Turco-Russian war ............................... 100,000,000
Algerian war .................................... 190,000,000
Civil wars, Spain and Portugal .................. 250,000,000
Canadian rebellion .............................. 11,000,000
Seminole war .................................... 27,000,000
Mexican war ..................................... 57,000,000
Revolutionary wars in Europe .................... 50,000,000
Chinese wars .................................... 44,000,000
Kaffir war ...................................... 10,000,000
Crimean war ..................................... 1,520,000,000
Italian war ..................................... 253,000,000
American civil war .............................. 5,000,000,000
Abyssinian war .................................. 43,000,000
Schleswig-Holstein war .......................... 75,000,000
Franco-Mexican war .............................. 75,000,000
Austro-Prussian war ............................. 330,000,000
Brazil-Paraguayan war ........................... 240,000,000
Franco-German war ............................... 2,500,000,000
Ashantee war .................................... 4,500,000
Central-Asian wars .............................. 225,000,000
Turco-Russian war ............................... 1,210,000,000
Afghan and South African wars ................... 85,000,000
Soudan war ...................................... 21,500,000
Madagascan war .................................. 85,000,000
Italy-Abyssinian war ............................ 115,000,000
Spanish-American-Filipino war ................... 1,000,000,000
Boer war ........................................ 800,000,000
Soudan war ...................................... 12,000,000
Chinese-Japanese war ............................ 300,000,000
$17,922,000,000 The reader will of course keep in mind the fact that this enormous sum does not include the vast expenditure for standing armies and navies. In this estimate no account is taken of the fact that so many hundreds of thousands of men are withdrawn from the arts of peace to learn the art of war; that instead of being producers, thus adding by their industry to the wealth of the world, they are only consumers, involuntary leeches on the body politic. Unquestionably the indirect cost of war is very much greater than the direct cost. But let us consider for a little the magnitude of the sum given—$17,922,000,000. Again we quote Mr. Butler’s words:— Just how much is a billion? It is one thousand millions; but that fact is not expressive. There are only 3,155,673,600 seconds in a century—that is, six dollars have been spent on war for each second of the century. If we take Archbishop Usher’s chronology, and consider the world to be 5,904 years old, we find that the nations have spent on war during the nineteenth century at the rate of six dollars a minute since the creation. The population of the world is estimated at 1,500,000,000; the money spent on war between 1861 and 1900 would give to each man, woman, and child alive to-day more than $13 as pocket money. If a man counted 200 a minute for ten hours a day, six days a week, he would have counted one million in 8 days, 3 hours, and 20 minutes. At the same rate he would need 8,333 days, 3 hours, and 20 minutes to count one billion, or 26 years, 195 days, 3 hours, and 20 minutes, not counting Sundays. To count twenty billions would take 532 years, 150 days, 6 hours, and 40 minutes. By far the larger part of this sum, vast as it is, has been spent in wars between “Christian nations,” and yet we wonder why the heathen are so slow to see and to acknowledge the great benefits of Christianity. Civilization is not Christianity, tho it is often mistaken for it. Christianity is Jesus Christ in the daily life, and He neither need nor sanctioned the use of carnal weapons. “For the weapons of our warfare ‘are not carnal,’ says the apostle, ‘but mighty ‘through God to the pulling down of strongholds.”