Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1919 — WAR COST WORLD 260 BILLION [ARTICLE]

WAR COST WORLD 260 BILLION

Prominent British Economist Sees Period of Great Trade Activity Near. ' ’ ■ London.—Edgar Crammond, prominent British financial writer, estimates the direct cost of the war to the allies at $141,800,000,000 and to the central European powers at $68,37a.000,000. He estimates the total coSt of the war, including indirect losses, at $260,000,000,000. ' He concludes that the fall in the price of commodities and wages will take place slowly and gradually. The war has enormously increased

the power of production in Great Britain, and he is convinced that this at the present time is at least 50 per cent over the production of 1913. Through all the economic records of the past, Mr. Crammond says, it is possible to trace an advance in the standard of living for the masses com currently with an increase in the amount of money in circulation and a decline in the purchasing power of money. He predicts that the nations are on the eve of a period of intense activity in trade such as the world has never known.