LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
GERMAN VERSUS BRITISH STAYING-POWER [To mils EDITOR Or THII "SPECTATOR."] SIII,—Whilst the beat public opinion in your country rightly advocates rigid economy, public and private, the .following comparison, illustrating Britain's staying-power, will probably cheer you. Referring to the article in the Round Table, you quote that magazine as stating that an expenditure of £4,000,000 a day, or £1,460,000,000 a year, represents about half your nation's income. Statis- ticians and economists assert that the statement is approximately correct. What are Germany's figures P Dr. Belfferich, stated a few days ago in the Reichstag that the war costs about 300,000,000 marks = £15,000,000 a day, of which Germany has to bear one-third = £5,000,000 a day = 21,825,000,000 a year. Now the highest estimate of Germany's national income is that of Steinmann-Bucher, who places it at forty milliards of marks, or £2,000,000,000. Germany therefore now spends approximately nine-tenths of her annual income on the war, against England's one-half. The full meaning of this statement can be put very clearly by a simple computation. Germany now has only about £200,000,000 left out of her average annual income to sustain seventy million people. That makes less than £3 per head Per annum. Great Britain has a surplus of, roughly, *1,400,000,000 to sustain forty-five millions. That makes over £31 per head per annum. These figures sustain, in my humble opinion, the view that Germany will be beaten economically and financially in the not distant future. Herr Helfferich himself has recently (before the war) estimated Germany's national wealth at three hundred and thirty millions of marks, or £16,500,000,000. A large part of this national wealth is of course totally unrealizable. She is now consuming for war alone one-tenth of her national wealth per annum. She must also eat up a large part of her wealth because of business stagnation, losses, depreciation, &o. Many competent observers believe that Germany cannot possibly finance another year's war, and they register numerous sinister portents, among them an evidently inspired Press cam- paign to sell all foreign stocks held, even at a sacrifice, in order to put the money into the War Loan ! With the grow- ing military efficiency and the superior financial stamina of the Allies, Germany has what Americans term " no show." She probably realizes it; hence those repeated ballona d'essai in the shape of peace rumours.—I am, Sir, &a.,
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