p. 8 | THE COST OF WAR by James Creelman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 18, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 20.

THE COST OF WAR.

By James Creelman

[By James Creelman, the noted war correspondent.]

MR. GLADSTONE once, in a budget speech—cited by Mr. Morley as a text to the chapter of his biography dealing with the Crimean War—made the following impressive statement:—

“The expenses of a war are the moral check which it has pleased the Almighty to impose upon the ambition and lust of conquest that are inherent in so many nations. There is pomp and circumstance, there is glory and excitement about war, which, notwithstanding the miseries it entails, invests it with charms in the eyes of the community, and tends to blind men to those evils to a fearful and dangerous degree. The necessity of meeting from year to year the expenditure which it entails is a salutary and wholesome check, making them feel what they are about, and making them measure the cost of the benefit upon which they may calculate.”

The conflict between Russia and Japan must soon demonstrate the soundness of Mr. Gladstone’s view of the increasing cost of war as an influence for peace.

There can be no doubt in the minds of those familiar with the subject that the comparatively small expense attending the war of 1894, in which Japan not only vanquished China, but won her footing in the family of nations, had much to do with the light-hearted enthusiasm in Japan for a war against Russia which preceded the night attack on Port Arthur. The military glory won by the Japanese in that short and one-sided war, not to speak of the enormous money indemnity and the cession of the rich island of Formosa, were stupendous rewards for such a trifling outlay of money and sacrifice of blood.

For ten years, therefore, Japanese policy has been more or less blind to the financial devastation involved in modern war on a large scale. With less than 50,000 men she drove the Chinese from Korea, invaded Manchuria, captured Port Arthur and Wei-Hai-Wei, smashed the Chinese navy, and compelled the oldest and most populous empire in the world to sue for peace—all within seven months. As a business investment—from a pagan point of view—the war with China was a paying business investment for Japan.

But the present war in Asia is a different thing. Russia must send her reinforcements more than 5,000 miles by rail. Japan must carry all her troops across the seas. Hundreds of thousands of men must be put in the field on each side. All this aside from the cost of maintaining and operating war-ships.

It is estimated that Japan’s available army at the present time aggregates about 400,000 soldiers. The cost of landing this force on the Korean or Manchurian coast at the rate of, say, $10 per man, exclusive of horses, artillery, and supplies, would be $4,000,000. Mr. Roche, formerly minister of commerce of France, believes that the cost of maintaining the Japanese forces will not be greater than $1.25 a day for each man, including clothing, equipment, food, transportation, and munitions. He estimates the cost of war to Japan, including the navy, at about $1,000,000 a day. If this be a fair valuation of Japan’s fighting expenses, it will take the entire earnings of more than 8,000,000 Japanese toilers to support the war, at the average wage rate of twelve cents a day. This, out of a total population of about 45,000,000. In other words, more than one-third of the male population of Japan can barely earn the daily cost of the struggle. Nor is the loss to Japanese commerce included in the estimate.

In the Turko-Russian War it cost Russia about sixteen cents a day to support each soldier in the field. But that was in a densely-populated, fertile country, with comparatively inexpensive transportation.

It is different in Manchuria. All supplies must be drawn from a great distance. Clothing, transportation, and food are dear. Besides, before the Russian troops can take the field—aside from the 150,000 said to be in Manchuria now—they must be carried more than 5,000 miles by rail. Putting the naked cost of transportation at one cent per mile for each soldier, the cost of carrying 100,000 troops—excluding artillery, horses, and supplies—would be at least $5,000,000.

Mr. Roche believes that when Russia has got over the first expense of her war with Japan, her army and navy will cost her from $1,500,000 to $1,750,000 a day, so long as she has to fight only in the Far East. Assuming the larger figure to be correct, it will take the wages of 7,000,000 Russian laborers to meet the expenses of the war.

All this relates to the war of Russia with Japan in Asia. But if the conflict should spread to Europe, if the great powers should take the field against each other, the estimated cost of the struggle, under modern conditions, is staggering.

Official figures show that in 1871 it cost France more than $2,000,000 a day to keep an army of 600,000 men in the field against the Germans. But today France claims to be able to mobilize, within forty-eight hours, about 2,000,000 men and 600,000 horses and mules. Germany can put 2,550,000 men in the field, Austria 1,300,000, and Italy 1,200,000. Schaffe, the Austrian economist, declared in 1896 that a war, involving the European continental powers, would cost France $5,100,000 a day, Russia $5,600,000 a day, Germany $5,000,000 a day, and Austria $6,000,000 a day.

According to Mr. Roche, a conflict between the European powers to-day would cost, for the first two months, including the initial outlay, the immense sum of $400,000,000, and, if 3,000,000 soldiers should take the field, the daily cost would amount to $6,000,000 a day.

With these estimates in sight, even tho they are mere approximations, it is not hard to understand why the statesmen of Europe are straining their wits and their energies to confine the present war to Asia.

If it takes the wages of 15,000,000 men to pay the daily cost of the war between Japan and Russia—a war confined within the radius of 1,000 miles—what would a general conflict mean to the overtaxed population of Europe?