200 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



increase of the total fiscal expenditure of these six great 

 powers. Taking the different estimates of their annual 

 expenditure for government purposes from 1870 to 1884, I 

 find that these six great powers have increased their annual 

 expenditure by £266,000,000 sterling. That is the 

 increase of the six great powers of Europe, and that 

 increase is almost wholly due to this terrible war expen- 

 diture which I have been trying to put before you. That 

 £266,000,000 means, of course, £266,000,000 of additional 

 taxation beyond what there was before. Surely this is a 

 cause of the most terrible impoverishment, and sufficiently 

 accounts for people not being so well able to buy as they 

 were before. Then, again, we must remember that when- 

 ever this great engine is put to its destined use, there 

 comes another loss in the actual destruction of property 

 and life. In every country where war is carried on, as a 

 necessary result towns and houses are battered down, 

 vineyards and fields are rendered desolate, fruit trees are 

 destroyed, and consequently we have an overwhelming- 

 amount of destruction of property whenever this war 

 machine is put into motion ; and here again is a cause of 

 poverty, and therefore one of the most direct and immediate 

 causes of the depression of trade. 



Now this machine has been put into action almost 

 continuously, either in greater wars or lesser wars, and as 

 we supply goods to almost every nation in the world, it 

 does not matter where the war is, one thing is certain, 

 that a considerable number of our customers are killed 

 and a nmch larger number are impoverished. Just 

 consider; in 1872 we had the great Franco-German war; 

 in 1875, the Ashantee war; in 1878, the terrible Russo- 

 Turkish war; in 1879 and 1880, the Transvaal and Zulu 

 wars; in 1881, the Afghan war; in 1883, the Egyptian 

 war; in 1884-85, the Soudan war; and since then the 

 French Tonquin war and then the Mahdi war. Now we 

 have the Burmese war, and the Soudan war is still going 

 on. Every one of these wars kills or impoverishes our 

 customers ; and consequently, not only by the cost of the 

 huge armaments, but by the vast destruction of life and 

 property they bring about, the war expenditure of Europe 



