'N the present war Germany's enemies

I

are endeavoring to bring about the economic as well as physical collapse of the German people by cutting off the overseas imports of food and rawstuffs. The imports in these important articles were before the war very large, and the enemies of Germany have succeeded in diminishing them to a great degree. On the other hand, they have not by the action attained the goal they had hoped to.

Even now every thinking person outside of Germany must be fully aware that, in spite of the diminution of the imports in provisions, the German civil population and the army are not threatened with starvation. Above all, however, German science has found ways and means of replacing the raw materials now lacking by materials of like value at present being reproduced in Germany. For example, an economically successful method of extracting nitrogen from the air, whereby the German powder industry and German agriculture are supplied with this otherwise missing rawstuff, has been discovered. The importation of petroleum having more or less completely ceased, this supply has also given out. Gas and electricity, for whose manufacture only coal, of which Germany has large quantities, is necessary, have taken its place as illuminants. The lack of fodder has been in part compensated for by an invention whereby the food values in straw are made accessible for feeding stock. And now another discovery is to be recorded which is not only of great importance as assuring the nourishment of our cattle, but arouses the greatest astonishment as an act of scientific boldness. The Institut für Gärungsgewerbe (Institute for Yeast Industries) in Berlin has discovered a process for making food yeast with over 50 per

cent. albumen in the simplest manner from sugar and ammonium sulphate. These quantities of albumen will easily replace the supplies of fodder barley that were formerly imported. Since ammonia is not only a by-product in the manufacture of coke, but can also be obtained directly from the air, this method has been correctly described as the extraction of albumen from the air.

These inventions, which will doubtless be followed by others in the course of the war, will have, above all, an effect on the financial world. Germany's enemies are compelled to draw a large part of their supplies of ammunition and arms, as well as provisions, from abroad. Since at the same time the purchasing power and prosperity of large transmaritime territories have been seriously damaged by the European war, the enemies of Germany are drawing smaller incomes from their foreign investments, while the exports of these countries have diminished during the same period. The excess of imports over exports in the foreign trade of Germany's enemies has, therefore, in the course of this war been enormously increased.

The result of this is that the payment of the very considerable sum to foreign countries which they have to make for these increased imports is made on the basis of an exchange very unfavorable for Germany's enemies. The argument that the exchange rate is unfavorable to Germany bears little weight here, for, in consequence of the interruption of German foreign trade, Germany has, in comparison with times of peace, small payments to make to foreign countries. The enemies of Germany, however, are compelled to pay in cash not only the contract sums, but also the deficit caused by the unfavorable rate of exchange.

The enemies of Germany have now

tried every means, or, rather, have been compelled to do so, in order to influence the rate of exchange. England has shipped some of the gold at her disposal in Canada to the United States. Russia and France have taken up foreign loans, not to get new cash but to make payments to their foreign creditors from the balances thus created, and thereby avoid the exchange. According to recent reports, England intends doing the same thing, in order thus to relieve the embarrassment caused her by the turn the exchange rate has taken.

But it must be remembered that the taking up of such foreign loans does not do away with the burdens imposed by the unfavorable rate of exchange, but simply postpones its effect until after the treaty of peace. These countries have, as it were, capitalized the losses growing out of the exchange rate and had their payment postponed by taking up foreign loans. But after the war the interest on these loans, as well as the sums for the liquidation of the debts, will all flow into the coffers of the foreign nations, and thus continue to influence the international monetary basis.

Matters will have quite a different aspect for Germany after the treaty of peace. Germany will then not be indebted abroad, as the costs of the war are all being covered at home. On the other hand, in consequence of the new discoveries made during the war and the newly built factories, she will be in a position to reduce the necessary payments to foreign countries and improve her exchange rate.

If the Germans, indirectly forced to it by the war, continue to use gas and electricity instead of petroleum, artificial nitrates instead of saltpeter, strawmeal and artificial fodder yeasts instead of fodder barley, in large quantities, the war will have brought about a strengthening of Germany's international financial position. Germany's enemies will then in this respect have shown themselves to be a power which, like Mephisto in Goethe's "Faust," always strives to evil and accomplishes only what is good.

Contrary to the deprecating assertions

of her enemies, the economic life of Germany is in the course of the war developing in a manner which, in consideration of the extraordinary conditions, may be said to be more than satisfactory. It is well known that the deposits of the German savings banks are constantly increasing. This in part explains the huge success of the war loan. Meanwhile, the German postal check service has reached a figure never touched before the war. During March, 1915, the number of persons having postal bank accounts in the imperial postal territory was 105,473818 more than in the previous month. In March the credits on these postal check accounts amounted to 2,142,000,000 marks, as against 1,779,000,000 in February and 1,875,000,000 in January of the same year; and the debits amounted to 2,124,000,000 marks, as against 1,764,000,000 in February and 1,877,000,000 in January. The payments made through this medium amounted, accordingly, to 2,352,000,000 marks in March, as against 1,982,000,000 and 2,020,000,000 in February and January, respectively.

These figures are seen in their true light when we remember, for example, that in the period Jan. 1-April 10, 1915, the withdrawals from the French savings banks amounted to 44,065,088 francs more than the deposits. The commercial war started by Germany's enemies seems to agree with them much worse than with the country they attacked. The nations * * * being courted by the Allies have so far been able to keep their heads cool. They consider, and rightly, too, how much of all that which is promised in time of need the Allies will do or be able to do, and whether or not some reasonable national ideal may be realized at less cost than participation in this bloody struggle. But even should the future have surprises in store for us, the quiet confidence of the central powers that they will attain their goal is not to be shaken. For this goal is not the subjugation of the world, as their envious enemies would have it appear, but simply the desire to be freed from the strangle hold which hindered them in their normal development. It is not that Germany has a lust for world

1168

A

GREAT religious idea is declared to be under the watchword of "Teuton above All." Their Kaiser to the Germans represents more than a King; he is the right hand of the King of Kings, and his subjects' eyes assume a reverential expression, their speech drops a note, when they say "Our Kaiser." The nation is, moreover, Christian; it subscribes to one faith and professes the Christian ideal.

66

We may assume that, even in the face of their present opposition, all the contending powers would agree that there is but one God. There is but one God of the Germans and of the English, of the Austrians and the French, of the Belgians and the Turks. We are not concerned with His prophets, but Himself. It suits Germany to predicate a Jaweh, who regards with approval their doctrines of Frightfulness and a “necessity" that may be greater than any human oath; it better serves our purpose to protest at this conception and declare for a God of mercy and forgiveness and truth, Their God inspires them to strike for themselves and seek to impose the ideal of their reigning classes upon the rest of the world; our God inclines us to recognize the sovereign rights of all mankind, be they weak or strong, able or impotent. We argue that the accident of Belgium's salvation embracing our own has nothing to do with our action: that had Belgium been Serbia and our word given, we should have similarly set forth on her behalf.

Now, the English and German ideals cannot both be of God, because they contradict each other. We may argue that the virus of hate which has for the moment poisoned German thinking cannot be an inspiration of Heaven, since it leads

to no culture, breeds bad air, and results in a mental and physical condition of absolute exhaustion from which no temporal or spiritual advantage can possibly spring to man or race; they, on the other hand, characterize their ebullition as righteous wrath and the just outcome of what they conceive to be our present attitude to them. We speak of "envy, hatred, and malice "; they describe the same emotion as the natural outpouring of a nation's spirit, which finds itself frustrated, foiled, outraged by a sister nation with a giant's power and the evil will to use it like a giant.

There would seem no common ground of reconciliation. A kingdom spoon fed by its rulers and trained to the platter of a fettered press has slowly absorbed ideals which we view with distrust and dislike; while their wisest and best are honestly of opinion that things have come to such a pass with Germany that only her cannon can make civilization listen to her. Her philosophers have subscribed to that opinion and hold that the conspiracy of Europe to deny their country the right to impose her culture (or Kultur, i. e., Civilization) upon it, can only be put down with fire and sword. But a nation that cringes to a Junker Lieutenant has ostracized its well-wishers, and for Herr Lamprecht to declare that Germany is the freest country in the world simply means that he and his fellow-kinsmen have forgotten what freedom is. A Goethe or Schiller, could they return, would find Germany chained and manacled.

On our part, with an immense and, for the most part, successful experience of colonization, we hold that any imposition is fatal, and that to speak of "England over all" would be to destroy our