"Surplus Wealth" for foreign investment drained France of capital needed for internal development. It weakened her in her war with Germany. The profits went not to the investors but to the banks which negotiated the loans.

Professor John Hobson, the English economist, says: "Adventure, lust for gold, etc., are the fires in the engine of war, but the great financial interests direct the engine.'

It was "Surplus Wealth" invested in South Africa that brought on the Boer war at the instance of the British mine owners. It was "Surplus Wealth" that led to the spoliation of Mexico, the taking of her lands, mines, oil wells, and the richest portions of the country through bribes and the corruption of the officials of that country.

The Demand for a Powerful Navy.

"Surplus Wealth" that can be "spared for investment abroad" gathered together from the savings of millions of people placed by them in the banks of the country, is now carrying on a campaign for dollar diplomacy and the building of a navy, to protect its investments, to enforce its demands, to insure its concessions-too often secured by fraud, by bribery and corruption, from revolutionary groups and fictitious governments. "Surplus Wealth" seeking profit in foreign lands is carrying on a campaign to send our sons to offer their lives as a sacrificial offering on the altar of profit wrung from weaker peoples.

Financial imperialism began with the occupation of Egypt by Great Britain in 1882. Since that time the doctrine that the flag follows the investor, has loaded the nations of Europe with a crushing burden of armaments that increase year by year with the size of the investments, and the control of the financiers of their respective governments.

If anyone questions the fact that the crushing armaments of Europe are due to the demand of the investors, he need only to compare the growth of expenditure for navalism with overseas finance. "Surplus Wealth" investment began in the nineties on the part of Great Britain, France and Germany. It has increased at the rate of over a billion dollars a year in the last few years. The foreign investment of these three powers alone now amounts to $40,000,000,000.

Note how the expenditure for the navy has coincided with "Surplus Capital" in foreign lands:

Dollar diplomacy, navalism and the exploitation of weaker peoples, which ended finally in the European cataclysm, have gone hand in hand during the last twenty years. The darkest pages of this story will never be written, for the records lie buried in the graves of weak and defenseless peoples in every part of Africa, in Asia, in Turkey, Asia Minor and the Balkans.

Footing the Bill of Imperialism.

Now somebody must support the police force that is to protect the overseas financiers; someone must pay for the army and the navy that is to serve the summons and make the arrests of bankrupt revolutionists and warring weaklings that have squandered the loans that the financiers have supplied to them. If railroad, mining, oil and land grants are revoked, if the natives will not work and turn on the overseer, someone must pay for the cost of restoring order. One would suppose that the financier would pay for his own policing; but no such suggestion has yet appeared in the programme of the big navy men. The programme now before Congress calls for a far simpler means of paying the bills. It is not to be done by the income tax; not by an inheritance tax; not by a tax even on the making of munitions and the things that the financiers own. Rather it is to be done in the good old way described by an honest but indiscreet French financier, who said that the way for monarchs to secure their taxes.was "to pluck the goose without making it cry out." In other words the taxes are to be gotten by not letting the people know they are paying them. They are to be added to the cost of everything the people consume. They are to be collected from the comforts and necessities of the people. They are to be taken from sugar, gasoline, the customs and internal revenue taxes, all of which bear almost exclusively on the farmer and the worker. It is not important that no country in Europe has the courage or the meanness to collect so large a part of its revenue from the poor as does democratic United States; it is of no concern that ten-elevenths of our revenues come from taxes on consumption, and only one-eleventh from wealth, as opposed to 45% in Great Britain even before the war broke out. The cost of preparedness, colossal profits for the armament makers, protection to the financier in his foreign exploitation, is to be shifted to the backs of the worker and the farmer, whose sons are further to be permitted to offer their lives as privates in some unknown, uncivilized land where the investments lie.

The plan is so simple. And it has been worked so many times. But heretofore the thimble game has only been

worked in the capitals of Europe, where the people have no say about the rules of the game. But it is being tried in the United States. And behind it there is far more wealth than is concentrated in any group of men in all the world. Possibly that will make up for the fact that they have no Kaiser or Czar, no aristocracy or Junkers to put the programme over. But the game is the same in every particular, and it is the game that has drenched all Europe in blood.

WAR, MILITARISM AND "PREPAREDNESS."

The Cost of Militarism.

During the ten year period, 1905-1914, preceding the present war, the military appropriations, exclusive of war pensions, of the eight foremost militarist nations of the world, in millions of dollars, were as follows:

The foregoing table shows that the United States ranked third in the race for military preparedness prior to 1915. As the present appropriations for army and navy have been doubled by Congress, this country is likely to lead the whole world in waste for militarism.

Moreover, this table shows that Russia, whose military and economic strength has partially broken down in the present war, was the leading preparedness country in terms of money prior to the war.

Perhaps a better picture of the terrible waste of militarism is shown by the cost of thirty years armed peace to the five great militarist powers of Europe compiled by the World Peace Foundation,

Thirty years cost of armed peace, 1881-1911 in millions

of dollars was:

In 1910 nine military nations, including the United States, devoted on the average 28.9 per cent of their entire receipts to military purposes, the average per capita expenditure being 3.47 dollars or about 18 dollars per family of five. The average cost per man in the United States Army is the largest. The support of one fighting man costs this country 1,314 dollars per annum, while to Great Britain it costs only 378 dollars, to Germany 306, to France 291, to Spain 282, to Austria-Hungary 278, to Italy 273, to Russia 232 and to Japan 209 dollars.

A United States soldier, then, who produces absolutely nothing, consumes more produce than the combined average annual wages of two American laborers; the soldier costs 1,314 dollars while the average worker gets no more than 600 dollars per year.

Militarism and National Wealth.

The National debts are being increased, due to militarism. The actual and per capita national debt in 1914 prior to the present war in the six militarist countries of Europe was as follows:

Actual debts in
1914.

Per capita debt.

Huge as these debts are they have been put to shame by the war debts contracted during the first fifteen months of this war. The indebtedness jumped from 23 billion to 51 billion dollars within that short period.

The following table compiled by conservative economists indicates fairly well how the so-called "national wealth" is passing rapidly into the possession of bankers and munition makers through war loans:

Roughly speaking, after the first fifteen months of warfare one-seventh of the combined national wealth of the six belligerent countries had passed into the possession of international bankers and patriotic munition makers. If we recall that in almost every capitalist country one-tenth of the people control over fifty per cent of the national wealth, we shall be forced to admit that the fighting millions already have nothing to fight for. They possessed but little before the war and they are losing everything during the war, including their labor power, their health, their very lives.

A very conservative estimate of the New York Times Annalist holds that in 1917 the interest alone on the national debts of France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Great Britain will be $2,865,000,000 as against $746,180,000 in the last year of peace, that is to say it will be four times as large.

Increasing Cost of Living.

Cost of food and clothing is rising even during normal times of capitalist exploitation. During war time prices

soar.

In England whose powerful merchant marine has not been crippled by the war at all, the price levels for cereals and meats was 165 in December, 1915, as compared with 119 at the end of January, 1914, if the 1901-1905 average be taken as 100.

In Russia, despite the complete stoppage of her food exports during the war, prices for food have risen from 100 to 200 per cent, prices for fuel have trebled and quadrupled. In Germany there is such a scarcity of food, that meatless, fatless, milkless days and other enforced fasts have become so "popular," that the government has recently ordained a two month abstinence from all meat.