THE COST OF WAR by Wm. Penniman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 15, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 49.

THE COST OF WAR.

By Wm. Penniman

BY WM. PENNIMAN.

THE wars of the European and American nations from 1790 to 1880, or ninety years, cost $15,235,000,000, besides the great loss of human life and demoralization of life. The great national war debts of the world in 1884 amounted to $27,155,000,000. According to the Journal of Education, the annual cost of the world's chief regular armies amounted to $687,947,620. Next to the cost of alcoholic stimulants, tobacco, or the rum curse, comes war.

In a recent article in the North American Review, Mr. Archibald Forbes, speaking of the strength of the dual alliance (France and Russia), and of the triple alliance (Germany, Austria, and Italy), says:—

The war strength of Russia is 2,411,105 officers and men, 800,000 horses, and 4,500 guns. The war strength of Germany is 2,440,000 officers and men, 562,150 horses, and 4,430 guns; of Austria, 1,590,000 officers and men, 292,000 horses, and 2,140 guns; of Italy 1,253,200 officers and men, 134,000 horses, and 1,620 guns. The total war strength of the dual alliance is 5,126,705 officers and men, 1,263,000 horses, and 9,700 guns; of the triple alliance, 5,287,200 officers and men, 988,150 horses, and 8,190 guns. The war strength of the triple alliance infantry, therefore, is superior to that of the dual alliance in officers and men by 160,495, while it is inferior 274,850 in the number of horses, and 1,500 in the number of guns. The total forces available by both alliances in war, field, and troops only is 10,413,905. The gross population of both alliances is 272,569,462.

These millions of men must be paid and fed at an enormous expense. The horses must be fed. The cost of guns and powder is an immense sum. Estimate the amount of good that nearly eleven millions of men could do if their lives were devoted to a better purpose. Think of the ruined homes, think of the loss intellectually and morally, think of the blood that will be shed when those nations will be in actual combat. It is estimated that if all the blood which has been shed in war could be collected, it would make a lake large enough to float all the navies in the world.

These war forces which are at work in the world show us where we are in the stream of time, and that the great battle of Armageddon is near, which will culminate in the slaughter of the whole wicked world. God and eternity only can estimate the cost of war. But war will sometime cease; the great battle of Gog and Magog will have been fought; the wicked nations will be no more, and a universe free from sin and the horrors of fratricidal strife will exist forever.

Let us, then, while the angels are holding the four winds, help to spread the message which is both a blessing and warning to the world.