F. — ECONOMICS. 115 



signals. By ' we ' I mean not the British only, but all the peoples of 

 Western and Central Europe. Of Eastern Europe I will only speak 

 incidentally ; for I am unable as yet to extract truth from the conflicting 

 and biassed evidence as to its economic condition. Moreover, there is 

 still war in the Eaet. 



In 1815 France had been engaged in almost continuous wars for 

 twenty-three, England for twenty-two, years. The German States 

 had been at war less continuously; but they had been fought over, 

 conquered, and occupied by the French. Prussia, for instance, was 

 overthrown in 1806. When the final struggle against Napoleon began, 

 in 1812, there was a French army of occupation of nearly 150,000 men 

 in Prussia alone. From 1806 to 1814 Napoleon's attempt to exclude 

 Enghsh trade from the Continent had led to the English blockade — 

 with its striking resemblances to, and its striking differences from, the 

 blockade of 1914-19. Warfare was less horribly intense, and so less 

 economically destructive, than it has become in our day ; but what it 

 lacked in intensity it made up in duration. 



Take, for instance, the loss of life. For England it was relatively 

 small — because for us the wars were never people's wars. In Prance 

 also it was relatively small in the earlier years, when armies of the 

 old size were mainly employed. But under Napoleon it became enor- 

 mous. Exact figui'es do not exist, but French statisticians are disposed 

 to place the losses in the ten years that ended with Waterloo at fully 

 1,500,000. Some place them higher. As the population of France 

 grew about 40 per cent, between 1805-15 and 1904-14, this would 

 coiTespond to a loss of, say, 2,100,000 on the population of 1914. The 

 actual losses in 1914-18 are put at 1,370,000 killed and missing; and 

 I believe these fig-ures contain some colonial troops. 



Or take the debts accumulated by victors and the requisitions or 

 indemnities extoiiied from the vanquished. The wars of a century ago 

 left the British debt at 848,000,000/. According to our success or 

 failure in securing repayment of loans made to Dominions and Allies, 

 the Great War will have left us with a liability of from eight to nine 

 times that amount. Whether our debt-carrying capacity is eight or nine 

 times what it was a century ago may be doubted, and cannot be 

 accui'ately determined. But it is not, I would venture to say, less than 

 six or seven times what it was, and it might well be more. A good 

 deal depends on future price levels. At least the burdens are com- 

 parable ; and we understand better now where to look for broad shoulders 

 to bear them. 



After Waterloo France was called upon to pay a war indemnity of 

 only 28,000,000?., to be divided among all the victors. With this figure 

 Prussia was thoroughly dissatisfied. Not, I think, without some 

 reason. She reckoned that Napoleon had squeezed out of her alone, 

 between 1806 and 1812, more than twice as much — a tremendous exac- 

 tion, for she was in those days a very poor land of squires and peasants, 

 whose treasury received only a few millions a year. England, who 

 was mainly responsible — and that for sound political reasons — for the 

 low figure demanded of France, found herself, the victor, in the curious 

 position of being far moi'e heavily burdened with debt than France, who 



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