Increasing War Expenditures
Regarding the new battle-ships which it is proposed that the nation shall build, there seems prospect that much opposition will be met in Congress. Chairman Tawney of the House Committee on Appropriations is against the eighteen million dollar battle-ships. He finds that 71 per cent of the expenditure of the Government outside of the Post-office Department is military. Three years ago the war expenditures of the Government were 65 per cent of the total. The proportion of public money spent on war, increases constantly. The late Mr. Allison, chairman of the corresponding committee in the Senate at that time said that since 1883 the yearly cost of pensions has risen by thirty million dollars, of the army by fifty-one million, of the navy by eighty-four million. The naval appropriation for 1910 is more than double the naval expenditure in the year of the Spanish war; ten times as great as in 1886, and five times as great as in 1896, says an Eastern exchange. Every thirty-two thousand ton battle-ship renders almost obsolete the sixteen thousand ton. But all this war expense and awful burden increase notwithstanding the call for peace, and both the peace cry and the war expense are the fulfilment of the prophecy of God's Word.