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ECONOMIC ASl'ECTS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 221
To sum up. Our broad conclusions thus are that
although the war has caused a great disturbance of
local industry, greater in proportion to the industry of
the localities which are the seat of war than any similar .
disturbance upon record, yet the war altogether has
not caused any great economic disturbance because it
has really been small in proportion to the resources of
the British Empire. The disturbance of the local in-
dustries again has been" compensated, except to the
UitJanders expelled from the Transvaal, by the benefits
which the local communities have derived from the
expenditure on the war itself in their midst, that ex-
penditure taking place not at their own expense but
at the expense of an outside power. The whole cir-
cumstances are such as to bring to light and emphasize
the enormous strength of modern communities. We
are writing thus of a war which involves a contest
between from 50,000 to 60,000 men on one side, prob-
ably the best militia which has ever appeared in the
field for defensive purposes, and about 200,000 men on
the other side, by far the largest army which England
at any time has put into the field. Our operations in
Wellington's Peninsula campaigns, the largest military
operations ever before undertaken by a British army,
employed not more than from 30,000 to 40,000 English
troops, and at Waterloo itself these troops were not
more than about 30,000. Both in the Crimea and in
I ndia at the Mutiny we had not much more than these
numbers of English troops engaged. The present
scale of operations is thus beyond precedent in our
history; yet we cannot but write as to the expense in
the way we have done. All things considered the war
is realJy a small one as far as the resources of the
mother-country and the Empire are concerned. The
question of questions for the future must undoubtedly
be that of our position with reference to the more
serious possibilities of defence which the development
of other great powers of an essentially military dis-
position may force upon us before long.