Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume XII : $b The Great Results of the War
History
Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume XII : $b The Great Results of the War
League of Nations; Treaty of Versailles (1919 June 28); World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Economic aspects; World War, 1914-1918 -- Finance
"Mr. M. Barriol, the celebrated actuary, gives the following
figures as the capital value of man: in the United States,
$4,100; in Great Britain, $4,140; in Germany, $3,380; in
France, $2,900; in Russia, $2,020; in Austria-Hungary, $2,020
or an average capital value for the five foreign nations of
$2,892.
"The number of men already lost is 8,509,000 killed and
7,175,000 permanently wounded, or a total of 15,684,000. Thus
society has been impoverished through the death and permanent
disability of a part of its productive man-power to the extent
of $45,000,000,000.
"The loss of men, measured in terms of the capital value of the
workers withdrawn from industry, is offset in some degree by
the enhancement of the capital value of the remaining
producers.... This loss of man-power is also partly offset by
the large contingents of women drawn into industries. In
England, out of a female population of 23,000,000, about
6,000,000 were engaged before the outbreak of the war in
gainful occupations. Since the war broke out no less than
1,500,000 women have been added to the ranks of wage-earners,
an increase of fully 25 per cent. Moreover, about 400,000 women
have shifted from non-essential occupations to men's work. In
the United States, approximately 1,266,000 women are now
engaged in industrial work, either directly or indirectly
necessary to carry on the war.
EFFECTS ON POPULATION
"The physical and moral effects of the war, the moral strain to
which the nations have been subjected, the 'shell-shock' which
has reacted upon the population at home as well as upon the
soldiers on the battlefield, the undernourishment and
starvation of children as well as adults, all have resulted in
a lowered vitality, the ill effects of which, especially in the
countries of the Central Powers, are already seen in an
increase of the death rate, in a spread of epidemics and
diseases that have taxed the medical resources of all
countries.
The lowered vitality of the race, which is still further
aggravated by the millions of incapacitated soldiers and the
premature and excessive employment of children and women in the
industries, will eventually make for a lower standard of
efficiency in all human activities, or a retardation of human
progress. Authoritative statements are to the effect that in
Belgium in the earlier period of the war, the deaths of women
and children far outnumbered those of men. Annual deaths among
the German civilian population have increased by a million
above the normal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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