Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/144

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112
MILITARISM

rate of three francs per day per man, the value of

12,507,963 francs a day.

Europe further used for military purposes

710,342 horses

which, at a rate of two francs per day per horse, could produce a value of

1,420,684 francs a day.

Adding that sum to the 12,507,963 francs we obtain a total of

13,928,647 francs.

Multiplied by 300 that sum shows, together with the budget, a lost productive value of

11,915,913 francs."

But in Germany alone the military budget increased from 1899 to 1906–07 from 920,000,000 to about 1,300,000,000, more than 40 percent. For the whole of Europe the total amount of military "overhead charges," not counting the costs of the Russo-Japanese War, reaches at the moment of writing some

13,000,000,000 marks per annum,

say 13 percent, of the total foreign trade of the world. In truth a veritable policy of bankruptcy!