The war expenditures of the Yankees.
The Yankees are spending, for war purposes alone, $1,250,000 per day, so their writers say. This is a larger sum than she correspondent of the Baltimore American gave them credit for in the article upon which we commented some time ago. It makes $155,000,000 per annum, instead of $442,000,000, as we stated in a former article. This is the most tremendous expenditure for war purposes, not only that ever was made, but that ever was conceived by the wildest imagination. In the House of Commons, in 1815, Mr. Tierney stated that the British war expenditure amounted in 1808 to £45,000,000 sterling, ($225,000,000;) in 1809 it reached £52,000,000 sterling ($260,000,000.) In 1810 it fell back to £46,000,000 sterling ($230,000,000.) In 1811, it again arose to £ 52,000,000 sterling, ($260,000,000.) In 1812, it went up to £55,000,000 sterling, ($275,000,000.) In 1813, it was £57,000,000 sterling, ($235,000,000.) In 1814, it was £ 66,000,000 sterling, ($315,000,000;) and, in 1815, it reached its maximum, being that of £ 72,000,000 sterling, or $360,000,000. The Yankee war expenditure, therefore, for the first year, exceeds that of Great Britain, for the last year of the great French war, by $35,000,000. During the period noted above, England made the most gigantic of all her mighty struggles. It measures the exact time during which the Duke of Wellington, was achieving all those successes, which have place his name on the roll of the great Captains of the world. It begins with Vimiera, and ends with Waterloo. The episode of the American war also comes, like a parchthesis, between the first and last of these years.--Besides this, they are marked by the capture of the royal family of Spain, the intrusion of King Joseph, the campaign of Wagram, the Waicheren expedition, the battle of Talavera the lines of Tufies Vedras, the campaign of Russia, the retreat of Napoleon, the campaign of Germany, the battle of Leipsic, the invasion of France, the first abduction of Napoleon the battle of New Orleans, the Peace of Grant, the return of Napoleon, the battle of Waterloo, and the second occupation of Paris. These events exceed in grandam any of which history makes mention, and their importance was by no means second to their sublunary. In bringing them about, England made exertions to which there is no paratted in the history of mankind. She subsidized all European she kept more than a hymen of men under arms; she supported a navy Consisting of more than a thousand men-of war. One hundred and forty-seven thousand seamen, and thirty-three thousand marities manned her Navy. And yet, her expenditures during this period of unparallel exertion and unheard of triumph were never, for any one year, so great as will be those of Old Age Lincoln at the close of the fiscal year ending 1st June, 1862.We perfectly comprehend the motives of the Lincoln Government in plunging heading into this bottomless ocean of expenditure.--Indeed, if there had otherwise been any doubt about it, the New York journals would have sufficiently enlightened us. "Short and sweet,' was the favorite war cry. ‘"Onward to Richmond"’ was the watch-word. Old Scott had told Lincoln that he would take Richmond by a mere flank march, and extinguish the ‘ "rebellion"’ in a single campaign, and Lincoln was fool enough to take the gasconade of the bragging old. ‘"Failure"’ for gospel. He has already seen that it was anything else than gospel.--He has already met with a resistance which must convince him that it requires more money and better men than he can command to reduce these rebels of whom he speaks, and teaches his understrappers to speak in such contempt does terms. He has found that even the present war, languid as it is, and destitute of all striking incidents, can only be kept up by an expenditure greater than that employed by Great Britain to overthrow the colossal power of the great Napoleon.
Instead of being ‘"short and sweet,"’ the present war promises to be of indefinite duration. No man can see to the end of it. It never has happened that a State, when once she begins to borrow for war purposes, can do with a legs sum, for three consecutive years, than she borrowed for the first. With the Yankees this is especially the case. They have nothing to raise money upon. They cannot borrow less any succeeding year than they borrowed the first year, because they have nothing to supply the deficiency in the estimates but loans. The probability is, that their loans will increase in size every year, as their difficulties become greater, and the necessity of employing more men increases. Less than $500,000,000 a year they cannot, obviously, do without. They require that sum, and how are they to get it, unless by means of a loan? In England they began the great French war with a loan of three millions sterling. They ended it by a loan of forty millions. From all we know of the Yankee Government, we are not induced to believe that they will manage their affairs better than the English did. Old Abe is not a greater financier than Pitt, and we take it that Castlereagh as a war minister was fully the equal of Cameron.
