THE WASTE OF WAR
And the waste of it all; the criminal, unbelievable waste! Consider the vast loss of products that is due, not only to actual war, but to unceasing and universal preparation for war.
It has been stated on the highest authority that during the last decade forty per cent of the total outlay of European states has been absorbed by the armies and navies which, when war arises, seek in every way to destroy as much as they can of the remainder. Commenting on this state of affairs, Count Sergius Witte, the ablest of Russian statesmen and financiers, said in London not long ago:
“Sketch a picture in your mind’s eye of all that those sums, if properly spent, could effect for the nations who now waste them on heavy guns, rifles, dreadnaughts, fortresses and barracks. If this money were laid out on improving the material lot of the people, in housing them hygienically, in procuring for them healthier air, medical aid and needful periodical rest, they would live longer and work to better purpose, and enjoy some of the happiness or contentment which at present is the prerogative of the few.
“Again, all the best brain work of the most eminent men is focused on efforts to create new lethal weapons, or to make the old ones more deadly. For one of the arts in which cultured nations have made most progress is warfare. The noblest efforts of the greatest thinkers are wasted on inventions to destroy human life.
“When I call to mind the gold and the work thus dissipated in smoke and sound and compare that picture with this other villagers with drawn, sallow faces, men and women and dimly conscious children perishing slowly and painfully of hunger I begin to ask myself whether human culture and the white man who personifies it are not wending toward the abyss.”
In “War and Waste” Dr. David Starr Jordan quotes the table of Richet to show the cost of a general European war.
Per day the French statistician figures the war’s cost thus:
Feed of men …………………………………. $12,600,000
Feed of horses ……………………………….. 1,000,000
Pay (European rates) ………………………….. 4,250,000
Pay of workmen in arsenals and ports ……………. 1,000.000
Transportation (sixty miles, ten days) ………….. 2,100,000
Transportation of provisions …………………… 4,200,000
Munitions
Infantry, ten cartridges a day …………….. 4,200,000
Artillery, ten shots per day ………………. 1,200,000
Marine, two shots per day …………………. 400,000
Equipment ……………………………………. 4,200,000
Ambulances, 500,000 wounded or ill ($1 per day) ….. 500,000
Armature …………………………………….. 500,000
Reduction of imports ………………………….. 5,000,000
Help to the poor (20 cents per day to one in ten) … 6,800,000
Destruction of towns, etc ……………………… 2,000,000
TOTAL PER DAY …………….. $49,950,000
Chapter XX.
CANADA’S PART IN THE WORLD WAR
New Relations Toward the Empire—Military Preparations—The Great Camp at Valcartier—The Canadian Expeditionary Force—Political Effect of Canada’s Action on Future of the Dominion
The sailing of the First Canadian Contingent on October 2, 1914, for England, en route to the theater of war, marked a noteworthy epoch in Canadian history. For the first time the Dominion took her place, not as a British colony, but as a component part of the British Empire. This position was established by the voluntary offer of expeditionary troops to be raised, equipped, and paid by Canada for the defense of the British empire.
For many years a movement had been on foot to bring about this attitude on the part of the Dominion by His Majesty’s government.
No such action was taken by the Dominion in the South African War, though a Canadian regiment was raised for the guarding of Halifax so that the regiment of British soldiers doing garrison duty there might be released for service at the front, and all other troops who left Canada went simply as volunteers to join the British army, though raised by the Dominion government.
When the situation in South Africa reached a critical stage and there were fears of German interference on behalf of the Boers it became clear that the British government strongly desired a helping hand from Canada for political reasons. It seemed a good time to show a solid front and a united Empire. Later, on October 3d, there came a request for 500 men from the British Colonial Secretary. No immediate action was taken on this, but on October 13th, the government passed an Order-in-Council for the raising of 1,000 volunteers and providing for their equipment and transportation. But these men were really British volunteers, not Canadian troops, as once at the front they became British soldiers under British pay. This contingent was known as a “Special Service Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry,” and did not belong in any sense to the organized troops of the Dominion, either regular or militia, although they approached more nearly to that status than in any previous case of assistance given by the Dominion to the Empire.
In the Indian Mutiny in 1857 a regiment was raised in Canada by the British government known as the 100th Prince of Wales Royal Canadian Regiment” and in the Empire’s other wars, such as the Crimean and the Soudanese, there were always Canadian volunteers in the British forces.