Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese war / by Gotaro Ogawa.

CHAPTER VIII

EFFECTS ON THE NATIONAL LIFE
GENERAL REMARKS
The effects of the war on the national life were touched
upon in the preceding chapters. We now propose to systematize these fragmentary data, together with some added data,
as a conclusion of our whole study.
No war exercises a favorable influence on the national life.
When a war is waged at the risk of the state, the nation is
called on to bear direct heavy burdens on the one hand and
indirect distresses caused by the derangement of economic
organs on the other. We have seen already that these things
happened during the Russo-Japanese War, but the extent of
their afflictions must be made clearer in this chapter. More-,over, the effects of war on the national life are not limited to
-the period of actual conflict, but extend over subsequent
years, through the changes wrought in the distribution of
wealth or in the income of the nation.
WAGES AND PRICES
We have already invited the attention of the reader to the
fact that owing to the war there were many cases of closing
shops and factories, and many cases, too, of taxes in arrear.
These facts indicated in some degree the sufferings of the people during the war period. It is not difficult to imagine that
the middle and upper classes also suffered somewhat seriously
from the war; but it is the effects of the war on the life of the
lower classes that we especially want to know, and for which
we have statistical data. For this purpose it is necessary to
refer to the comparative study of wages and prices. The
movements of the prices may be seen from the index numbers
for the seven years from I90o to I907.
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