January i8, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
11 
only be an extreme exemplification of the general tendency. 
The issue of Tsushima was, after all, settled in twenty 
minutes. 
But, manifestly, no such results could be got at long 
range unless the art of using weapons were pushed to a 
point that has not been exemplified in any action of the 
war so far. I remember, in the summer of 1914, dis- 
cussing with a very shrewd officer of a neutral navy, how 
he thought modern tire control would stand the test of 
action. He replied that, so far as he could judge, the 
European navies \Vould come out of it worse than the 
-Vmerican and Spanish Navies did at Santiago. " You 
will have to light at long range," ho said, " and you have 
not the means of doing it. In action, range hnding and 
range keeping must be either perfectly accurate or per- 
fectly useless — -and, certainly, none of your methods are 
perfectly accurate." 
Arthur Pollen 
Finance and Freedom 
By Hartley Withers (Editor of 'Uhe Economist} 
IT has been said, over and over again, that demo- 
cracy is on its trial in this war. It has yet to be 
proved that free peoples, lighting for freedom, 
justice and respect for right, can organise themselves 
skilfully enough to master a foe who is lighting for 
tyranny, with all the advantages, in discipline and 
unity, that tyranny confers on its well-drilled slaves. 
Is this war going to show us that free States confer 
blessings on their citizens at the expense of their ability 
to defend themselves as States? If so, freedom is 
doomed. 
The answer has yet to be given to this terrible question, 
and the answer will seal the fate of civilization. In the 
matter of the supply of men for the fighting line. Freedom 
broke all records with a voluntary effort and then, when 
that did not suffice, made the great sacrifice and sub- 
mitted to force for freedom's sake. Will the same process 
have to be gone through in the matter of the supply of 
money ? The next few weeks will show, by the very 
practical test of the success or failure of the great War 
Loan now offered to subscribers. 
From one point of view, success is certain. It will 
show how great is the wealth of the country, and how 
ready is the patriotism of the great number of its citizens. 
But complete success can only be shown if We all do our 
duty. The standard required is so high that, as in the 
case of recruiting, a great success may not be great 
enough to be complete. Happily, we know from the 
Chancellor's plain statement at the Guildhall on January 
' nth ( of which more anon), that if the result of voluntary 
effort does not come up to the standard required, then 
we shall again be asked to submit to force for freedom's 
sake. From the cheers, from a rich capitalist audience, 
that greeted this plain threat, it is safe to infer that if 
the need is clearly shown, the country will be just as- 
ready to accept financial compulsion as, it was to take on 
itself the yoke of conscription, in order to master a 
worse tyranny. 
The official estimate of the total expenditure of the 
British Government during the current financial year — 
that is the year ending on March 31st next— is 1,976 
millions. When the late Chancellor of the Exchequer 
brought in his Budget last April, the estimate then 
put into his mouth was 1,826 millions, but this sum has 
since been increased owing to the rising claims of the cost 
of ammunition, and the growing drafts that our Allies 
are making upon us for advances. Before the war the 
annual Government expenditure was roughly ig8 
millions, so we see that the cost of the war, including 
loans to Allies, has multiplied our expenditure by almost 
exactly ten. When we look at our rate of spending, 
2,000 millions a year in round figures, it seems at first 
sight'too stupendous to be possible, especially when we 
remember that before the war the aggregate income of 
the whole nation was estimated, to take the highest 
figure, at about 2,400 millions. But two considerations 
brings the war cost within the bounds of possibility. 
In the first place, we have to allow for the great rise 
in the prices of commodities and of labour, which while 
increasing the cost of war, also increases the aggregate 
national income far above the peace level. In the 
second we have to remember that a large part of the 
2,000 millions that are being spent on the war, goes into 
feeding, clothing and otherwise providing for some six 
to eight millions of the population who are either serving- 
in the Army or Navy, or working for the Government 
and receiving wages and salaries tor so doing. Another 
consideration which shows clearly enough that the 
nation's financial task, if tackled in the right spirit 
by the nation, is not too great for its powers, is the huga 
margin that is made available by the great extent of our 
spending, in peace time, on pleasant amusements and 
frivolities that can well be dropped in time of war. 
listimates of the expenditure per head of the population 
in Great Britain and in Germany before the war, showed 
a difference of over £19 per head, by which ours exceeded 
our chief enemy's. Multiplied by the number of our 
population, this means a difference of no less than 900 
millions, so that we are in a position to save this sum by 
merely reducing our average spending per head to what 
Germany's was before the war. 
It is not safe to press these figures far, for thej' are 
necessarily based on estimates, and they are complicated 
by differences in the buying power of money in the two 
countries. But at least they serve to show how far a 
comparatively small effort in self-denial would carry us, 
since before the war the German population did not 
convey much appearance of stinting itself, and conse- 
quently how much further we could go if our civilian 
l^opulation really made that revolution in its standard 
of living which is the least sacrifice that it can make, in 
view of the far greater sacrifices that are being made in 
its defence, and in the defence of our cause, by the flower 
of our manhood at the front. 
The need for this revolution has long been preached, 
and though many have made a great patriotic effort in 
saving to support our soldiers, it must be admitted that 
many deaf adders have stopped their ears. Thought- 
lessness and ignorance are probably the cause of most of 
the extravagance that still preva,ils. The economic 
education of most of the population of these islands is 
a minus quantity, consisting of the cherishing of a few 
fallacies, the worst and commonest of which is the beliel 
that spending money, anyhow and on anything that we 
may happen to think we want, is " good for trade." 
With this ingrained. conviction, many people can only be 
persuaded with the utmost difficulty to see that it is now 
a crime to spend money on anything but health, efticiency 
and the victory of the great cause for which we have the 
honour to fight. 
It ought to be plain enough that at a time when 
the Government wants every possible shilling for the 
war, it is treason to spend one on our own amxisement ; 
and yet one still meets people who argue that when they 
buy frivolities, 'the money is "still there" — somebody 
else has got it, and it has not run away. They forget 
or will not see, that the somebody who has got it gave 
something in return for it, goods or labour or services ; 
that we cannot spend money without setting somebody 
to work for us ; and that it is wished to do this now 
only as far as is absolutely necessary, because there are 
not enough people to do all the work that is wanted for 
the army and navy, to provide us with the necessaries of 
life, and to turn out goods for export, to be sold abroad 
to produce funds for the purchase of the goods, for the 
war and for our sustenance, that have to be bought 
from foreign countries. 
If ever the terms of any loan are going to weigh with 
the mind .of the thoughtless spender, that time should 
be the present. The Government offers us a 5 per cent, 
loan at 95, redeemable at par (that is at /loo for each 
£95 that we put in) in thirty years at latest, and possibly 
