The War on All Fronts: England's Effort / Letters to an American Friend

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

III

So much for the Workshops and the Navy. Now before I turn to the New Armies and the Somme offensive, let us look for a moment at the present facts of British War Finance. By April last, the date of my sixth Letter, we had raised 2,380 millions sterling, for the purposes of the war; we had lent 500 millions to our Allies, and we were spending about 5 millions a day on the war. According to a statement recently made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (August 10), by March next our debt will have risen to 3,440 millions sterling, 1,060 millions more than it stood at in March last; our advances to our Allies will have increased to 800 millions, while our daily war expenditure remains about the same.

Mr. McKenna's tone in announcing these figures was extraordinarily cheerful. "We have every reason," he said, amid the applause of the House of Commons—"to be proud of the manner in which British credit has stood the strain." The truth is that by March next, at the present rate of expenditure, our total indebtedness (deducting the advances to our Allies) will almost exactly equal "one year's national income," i.e., the aggregate of the income of every person in the country. But if a man having an income of £5,000 a year, were to owe a total of £5,000, we should not consider his position very serious. "We shall collect a revenue in one year equal to 20 per cent. of the whole debt (i.e., 522 millions sterling), and we shall be able to pay, out of existing taxation, the interest on the debt, and a considerable sinking-fund, and shall still have left a large margin for the reduction of taxation"—words which left a comfortable echo in the ears of the nation. Meanwhile British trade—based on British sea-power—has shown extraordinary buoyancy, the exports steadily increasing; so that the nation, in the final words of the Chancellor, feels "no doubt whatever that we shall be able to maintain our credit to the end of the war, no matter how long it may last."

But do not let it be supposed that this huge revenue is being raised without sacrifice, without effort. It means—for the present—as I have already pointed out, the absorption by the State of five shillings in the pound from the income of every citizen, above a moderate minimum, and of a lesser but still heavy tax from those below that minimum; it means new and increased taxation in many directions; and, as a consequence, heavy increases in the cost of living; it means sharply diminished spending for large sections of our population, and serious pinching for our professional and middle classes.

But the nation, as a whole, makes no lament. We look our taxes in the face, and we are beginning to learn how to save. We have our hearts fixed on the future; and we have counted the cost.

The money then is no difficulty. Our resisting power, our prosperity even, under the blows of war, have been unexpectedly great.

But what are we getting for our money?

In the case of the Navy, the whole later course of the war, no less than the Battle of Jutland, has shown what the British Navy means to the cause of the Allies. It is as I have said, the root fact in the war; and in the end, it will be the determining fact; although, of itself, it cannot defeat Germany as we must defeat her; at any rate in any reasonable time.

Then as to the Army. Take first of all the administrative side. To what—in the last four months—has come that wonderful system of organisation and supply I tried to sketch in my fourth Letter, largely in the words of some of the chief actors in it?

Within the last fortnight, a skilled observer has been reporting to the British public his impressions of the "Army behind the Lines" in France, as I saw a portion of it last February, in the great British supply bases and hospital camps, on the lines of communication, and throughout the immense and varied activities covered by the British motor transport.

"The Germans," says this recent eye-witness, "have persisted that, even if we could find the men, we could not make the machine, which they have been perfecting for forty years and more. But it is here!—operating with perfect smoothness; a machine, which in its mere mass and intricacy, almost staggers the imagination. One cannot speak of the details of the system for fear of saying something which should not be told; but it is stupendous in its proportion, dealing as it does with the methodical handling of the men in their hundreds of thousands, of all their equipment and supplies, food, miscellaneous baggage and ammunition, and with the endless trains of guns—guns—guns, and shells, by millions upon millions, all brought from England, and all here in their place, or moved from place to place with the rhythm of clock-work. One cannot convey any idea of it, nor grasp it in its entirety; but day by day the immensity of it grows on one, and one realises how trivial beside it has been anything that British military organisation has had to do in the past. That is the real miracle; not the mere millions of men, nor even their bravery, but this huge frictionless machine of which they are a part—this thing which Great Britain has put together here in the last twenty months."