Britain's Unsheathed Sword
By H.H. Asquith, England's Prime Minister
Stating the estimated costs of the war to Great Britain, outlining the operations of the French and British allied fleets in the Dardanelles, declaring the Allies' position in retaliation for the German "war zone" decree against Great Britain, and reaffirming the chief terms of peace, stated in his Guildhall speech of last November, on which alone England would consent to sheathe the sword, the following speech, delivered in the House of Commons on March 1, 1915, by Prime Minister Asquith, is one of the most important of the war.
In Committee of Supply.
Mr. Asquith, who was loudly cheered on rising, moved the supplementary vote of credit of £37,000,000 to meet the expenditure on naval and military operations and other expenditure arising out of the war during the year 1914-1915. He said:
The first of the two votes which appear upon the paper, the one which has just been read out, provides only for the financial year now expiring, and is a supplementary vote of credit. The vote that follows is a vote of credit for the financial year 1915-1916. I think it will probably be convenient if in submitting the first vote to the committee I make a general statement covering the whole matter. I may remind the committee that on Aug. 6 last year the House voted £100,000,000 in the first vote of credit, and that on Nov. 15 the House passed a supplementary vote of credit for £225,000,000, thus sanctioning total votes of credit for the now expiring financial year of £325,000,000. It has been found that this amount will not suffice for the expenditure which will have been incurred up to March 31, and we are therefore asking for a further vote of £37,000,000 to carry on the public service to that date. If the committee assents to our proposals it will raise the total amount granted by votes of credit for the year 1914-1915 to £362,000,000. I need not say anything as to the purposes for which this vote is required. They are the same as upon the last occasion. But I ought to draw attention to one feature in which the supplementary vote, which comes first, differs from the vote to be subsequently proposed for the services of the year 1915-1916. At the outbreak of the war the ordinary supply on a peace basis had been voted by the House, and consequently the votes of credit for the now current financial year, like those on all previous occasions, were to be taken in order to provide the amounts necessary for naval and military operations in addition to the ordinary grants of Parliament. It consequently follows that the expenditure charged, or chargeable, to votes of credit for this financial year represent, broadly speaking, the difference between the expenditure of the country on a peace footing and that expenditure upon a war footing. The total on that basis, if this supplementary vote is assented to, will be £362,000,000.
For reasons the validity of which the committee has recognized on previous occasions, I do not think it desirable to give the precise details of the items which make up the total, but without entering into that I may roughly apportion the expenditure. For the army and the navy, according to best estimates which can at present be framed, out of the total given there will be required approximately £275,000,000. That is in addition, as I have already pointed out, to the sum voted before the war for the army and the navy, which amounted in the aggregate to a little over £80,000,000. That leaves unaccounted for a balance of £87,000,000, of which approximately £38,000,000 represents advances for war expenditure made, or being made, to the self-governing dominions, Crown colonies, and protectorates, as explained in the Treasury minute last November, under which his Majesty's Government have undertaken to raise the loans required by the dominions to meet the heavy expenditure entailed upon them on the credit of the imperial exchequer. In addition to that sum of £38,000,000 there has been an advance to Belgium of £10,000,000, and to Serbia of £800,000. Further advances to these allies are under consideration, the details of which it is not possible yet to make public. The balance of, roughly, £28,000,000 is required for miscellaneous services covered by the vote of credit which have not yet been separately specified.
I think the committee will be interested to know what the actual cost of the war will have been to this country as far as we can estimate on March 31, the close of the financial year. The war will then have lasted for 240 days and the votes of credit up to that time, assuming this vote is carried, will amount to £362,000,000. It may be said, speaking generally, that the average expenditure from votes of credit will have been, roughly, £1,500,000 per day throughout the time. That, of course, is the excess due to the war over the expenditure on a peace footing. That represents the immediate charge to the taxpayers of this country for this year. But, as the committee knows, a portion of the expenditure consists of advances for the purpose of assisting or securing the food supplies of this country and will be recoverable in whole, or to a very large extent, in the near future. A further portion represents advances to the dominions and to other States which will be ultimately repaid. If these items are excluded from the account the average expenditure per day of the war is slightly lower, but after making full allowance for all the items which are in the nature of recoverable loans, the daily expenditure does not work out at less than £1,200,000.