GROWING BUDGETS OF THE BIG NATIONS.
By G. B. Thompson
Under the above heading the New York World of Jan. 28, 1901, speaking editorially, gives the following items concerning the national expenditures of the various nations:— “It is interesting to speculate on what the annual expenditures of the leading civilized nations will be at the end or even at the middle of the present century if they keep on increasing at the pace set by the nineteenth.” “Great Britain’s imperial government is now spending money, not including Boer war expenses, at the rate of over $500,000,000 a year. That is an increase of 400 per cent. for the last century and of 84 per cent. since 1871.” “France under the great Napoleon, and when he was carrying on his stupendous wars, was spending a total of $225,000,000 a year. For 1900 her expenditures, in a time of peace, were almost four times as great. Her population has increased less than 30 per cent. since 1815, while her annual budget has increased 400 per cent.” “The German Empire, created only thirty-one years ago, has nearly trebled the total of its annual expenditures in that short time. In 1900 they footed up nearly $400,000,000.” “Russia’s ordinary expenditures have risen from a little over $200,000,000 in 1877 to $700,000,000 in 1900, and this takes no account of the $1,000,000,000 added to her vast railroad debt within the last four years.” “Nor is the United States behind in the matter of expanding expenditures. For many years past the Federal Treasury has been paying out for pensions alone twice as much as the total annual expenditures of the government down to 1860. Since President Buchanan’s time our yearly national expenditures have increased from less than $70,000,000 to over $500,000,000. That is to say, they have been multiplied seven times, while our population has been multiplied two and a half times.” “If this enormous increase in the yearly disbursements of all the leading governments of the world represented only or chiefly money spent to build railroads, dig canals, improve harbors, maintain public schools, and promote the arts and sciences, the growing burden of taxation which it implies might be borne with patience. But it mostly represents, in European budgets, and very largely in our own, money spent in war and in preparations for war. And all war is waste.” And then the nations of earth continue their gigantic preparations for war. Navies are increased, the standing armies are enlarged, and are equipped with the most formidable engines of death which man can invent. They see in the near future a bloody conflict, and are preparing for the terrible carnage. The nations are angry, and the day of God hastens on. “The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.” Isa. 17: 13. And then there will be a time of peace. G. B. Thompson.