Of the 280,000,000,000 dollars estimated productive wealth of the five principal nations involved in the war, the National City Bank of New York, says the World of that city, has computed that $15,000,000,000, or more than five per cent, has been expended already during the first year of the war, and that as the cost of the war is increasing daily, its continuance for another year would probably bring the total nearer fifteen per cent. In this case, the writer says, "It would be as if, within two years, these civilized humans had deliberately destroyed a seventh of the permanent property fruits of almost twenty centuries of Christian civilization."
Furthermore, this includes only wealth-producing property, and makes no account of the losses of mere valuables. The question is asked finally, "Will the total of wealth and power in wealth production which is being destroyed fall far short of equality to a fourth of the total accumulations of the five nations from all ages, even if the war were to end within another year? And this does not include the effect on neutral nations, nor the loss of life, the physical suffering, the emotional agony, and the moral degeneracy, which must come. With this fearful lesson in retrospect, will the nations be able, notwithstanding their incompatibility, to agree on terms of permanent peace?"
W. H. S.
