Naval Expenditures by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 3, 1909

Naval Expenditures.

By Editor

A REPORT issued by England's First Lord of the Admiralty gives the following figures as the total naval expenditure during the last ten years of the four great naval powers: Great Britain . . . . . £318,647,127 $1,590,000,000 Germany . . . . . . . . . . 107,927,573 535,000,000 France . . . . . . . . . . . . 126,122,028 630,000,000 Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . 104,642,215 520,000,000 -------------------------------------------------------------- Total . . . . . . . . . . . . £657,338,943 $3,285,000,000

All four are increasing their expenditure, as will appear from the following table, the increase of which we have given in American money. (The English pound is about five dollars.):

	1899.	1908.	Increase.
Great Britain	£25,731,220	£32,319,500	$30,000,000
Germany	6,672,788	16,596,561	45,000,000
France	12,144,020	12,797,308	3,200,000
Russia	8,306,500	9,833,915	7,500,000

The war debt of Europe is overpowering in its burden.

Political.—We honor President Roosevelt for the stand that he has taken on the election of the state senator in Oregon. The vote of the people was that Governor Chamberlain should be chosen by the Legislature. He is a Democrat, tho the Legislature returned was Republican; yet it was the duty of that Republican Legislature, according to the pledges made previous to election, to elect a Democratic senator. Mr. Roosevelt believes that that pledge ought to be redeemed. It seems as tho there could be no question about it, and yet there are politicians who contend that it ought to be for party's sake. Now the report is that bribery is being used to defeat the will of the people.—Congressman Theodore E. Burton of Cleveland has been elected United States Senator from Ohio.—Hon. Geo. C. Perkins was reelected on the first ballot in Sacramento, January 12, to succeed himself.—January 12 the state-wide prohibition bill passed the Tennessee Senate by vote of 20 to 13, and the Assembly the next day by a vote of 62 to 36. By the bill, prohibition becomes effective July 1, 1909.—It is said that the Mayor of Philadelphia has been receiving requests from officials of patriotic societies and clubs of western cities, that he permit the sending of the Liberty Bell to San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, during the coming summer. One patriotic association said: "We want the sacred relic to ring out for our people as it did for our forefathers." They seem to be ignorant of history, that the bell was cracked about fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, so that it was no longer fit to use. There is a striking parable in the old bell. Many people are cherishing the idea that the same degree of freedom exists, because of the name, which existed in 1776. They do not know that in many places in this great republic freedom has been as truly cracked and rendered unusable for human rights as was the old bell. The Liberty Bell is a piece of honored metal; liberty is still an honored name, but if many of our co-religionists had their way, as they have had in not a few instances, it would exist only as a name and a memory.