Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/398

394 monuments of the past. As to the destruction of factories, warehouses, roads, bridges, farm buildings, and machinery, fences, dikes and canals, but little attention has been given.

We are appalled by the assertion that millions of Belgians are homeless and without means of support, particularly when told that a vessel load of food is needed every day to keep these people from actual starvation. We are only beginning to realize that this tremendous toll upon the charity of the world, largely upon the United States, must continue for many months, because the means by which this population can earn its own living have, to a large extent, vanished through the destruction of the agencies of production. Thus far we have heard little of the needs and condition of northern France in which a population almost as large, ordinarily finds employment, and where the destruction of property must have been fully as great.

We think of the losses and cost of the war as involving only the expenses of the belligerent governments, and yet this is the smaller part of the permanent drain upon the world. If the war should cease to-day, the belligerent nations would be solvent and could carry the enormous burden of debt which they have been forced to assume. The greatest loss, the suffering, privation and disorganization will come to the people of those districts over which the armies have tramped.

Lord Kitchener tells us that the war will take at least three years, if it is fought to a finish: there is no reason to presume that this estimate is not correct. A finish, as he views it, involves the gradual wearing out of Germany; the pressing back of her armies until they are forced to surrender at the gates of Berlin. If his hopes are realized, the losses of the war will be tremendously increased, for the path of ruin and devastation will reverse its course and Germany will, at the end of the struggle, be fully as devasteddevastated [sic] as are Belgium and northern France to-day.

It is folly for any one, at this stage, to estimate the effect of the war upon American business and American financial conditions. From the few illustrative facts which I have set forth above, it is apparent that the duration of the war and the extent of its devastation will to a large degree, determine the effect of the conflict upon us. It has been apparent to every one that the duration of the struggle will directly affect its cost. The greater the cost, the larger the sacrifices which must be made, and the larger these sacrifices, the more profound will be the effect of the war upon neutral nations. We must bear in mind that the ability of the nations of Europe to bear the financial burdens of the war depends upon the extent to which their territory is ravaged and their lands, buildings and public works destroyed.

The governmental expenditures of the war, in so far as intelligent estimates can be made at this time, are running at the rate of $20,000,000,000 a year. The investment in new securities by the people of the