I

The following tables, compiled by Mr. Edward Atkinson, are inserted, with the permission of the compiler, as an appendix.

These statistics of the cost of war and of preparation for war, so effectively summarized by the Boston publicist, constitute, in the opinion of the publishers, an impressive commentary on the general conclusions and predictions of M. Molinari's treatise.

The cost of war and warfare from 1898 to 1903 inclusive has been over nine hundred million dollars ($900,000,000). The cost of the war with Spain and of the warfare upon the people of the Philippine Islands to the end of the last fiscal year, Jun. 30, 1903, had been over eight hundred and fifty million dollars ($850,000,000),—an addition in that fiscal year to the precious charge upon the taxpayers of this country of not less than one hundred and fifty million dollars ($150,000,000). This charge is increasing rather than diminishing. At the end of the present calendar year, December 31, 1903, we shall have expended in war and warfare not less than nine hundred and twenty million dollars ($920,000,000), which sum will be slightly in excess of the outstanding bonded debt of the United States bearing interest. Of this sum about three hundred million dollars ($300,000,000) is commonly assigned to the cost of the war with Spain. There is no exact data outside the government accounts by which this can be apportioned.

Over six hundred million dollars ($600,000,000) may be charged by taxpayers to the effort to deprive the people of the Philippine Islands of their liberty. The excess of the expenditures of this country, due to the warfare in the Philippine Islands, with the cost of the increase in the regular army and other expenditures engendered by militarism during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, varied but a fraction from two dollars ($2) per head of the population.

By dealing with the official figures for the year ending June 30, 1903, we may find the exact direction of the waste of taxpayers' money in one more year of oppression in the Philippines, of the refusal of liberty, and of futile efforts to redress wrongs previous committed.

The conduct of the work of imposing a form of government upon these people without their consent has been administered by able and upright men who have used their utmost effort to overcome the evil inherent in the conditions. The pretext of developing commerce by holding dominion over these islands has ceased to impose upon intelligent people. All that we import from the Philippines we may continue to import, whoever holds them,—the principal article, hemp, being free of duty. Our insignificant exports have fallen off with the withdrawal of a part of the troops and with the increasing disability on the part of the inhabitants to buy even articles of necessity, such being the poverty and distress which our rule has brought upon them. The proof of those statements is submitted in the subsequent form, all the figures being derived from the official reports of the government.

For twenty years, from June 30, 1878, to June 30, 1898, covering the administrations of Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland (first), Harrison, and Cleveland (second), the average annual expenditures on the different branches of the government service per capita were as follows:

The expenditures in five years of war and warfare under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt were as follows (annual average):

During the last fiscal year, ending June 30th, the expenditures have been as follows (during a year of so-called peace):

An excess over the normal of twenty years of peace, order, and industry of one dollar and thirty-five rents ($1.35) per head.

But this does not show the whole case. During the twenty years prior to the Spanish war the cost of pensions and interest was two dollars and fifty two cents ($2.52) per head. Had it not been for debts incurred and pensions to so-called Spanish war veterans, these charges, which had been reduced to two dollars and eight cents ($2.08) per head, would not have exceeded one dollar and eighty-eight cents ($1.88) in the last fiscal year, the falling in of pensions through lapse of time now moving on with accelerating speed.

These differences per head may seem to be of trifling importance, but when computed on the population of June 30, 1903, the customary factor by which expenditures are distributed by the Treasury Department,

The present tendency is to increase rather than to diminish, and when the expenditures of the present six months ending December 31, 1903 are audited, the proof will be complete that the cost of the war with Spain, which a strong administration would have avoided, and the "criminal aggression" upon the people of the Philippine Islands, which a weak administration brought upon the country, will have cost the taxpayers nine hundred and twenty million dollars ($920,000,000), a sum slightly larger than the entire bonded debt of the United States, bearing interest, now outstanding.

The pretext of expansion of commerce in the East in justification of closing the door to trade in the Philippine Islands to other nations, while strenuously urging the open door in China and other parts of Asia, has been exposed and now excites only derision. In the computation of the cost of war and warfare to June 30, 1902, it proved that we had been paying for five years one dollar and five cents ($1.05) per head of our population to secure an export which amounted to six and one half (6½) cents per head, on which there might have been a profit to some one at the rate of one cent per head of the whole population. The figures of the last year are even more grotesque. The cost of criminal aggression in the Philippine Islands during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, was not less than one dollar and a quarter ($1.25) per head, after making any allowance that any reasonable man could make for the alleged necessity of increasing the army of the United States and building battle-ships to meet other contingencies. The exports from the United States to the Philippine Islands have fallen off to less than five cents per head of our population: had there been a profit equal to one cent on the five cents they would not have fallen off.

We are still wasting the lives and health of American soldiers and continuing to bring poverty and want upon the people of the Philippine Islands under the pretence of "benevolent assimilation."

The effort to suppress the evidenoe of torture, devastation, and ruin brought upon the people of these islands has failed, the facts of "criminal aggression" have been proved. In this statement the cost in money to the taxpayers of the United States is now submitted.