But when it
comes to gold, there is the rub. Germany fixes a price of 20 cents a
pound for copper within her own borders, but the government will pay 30
cents a pound to anybody who will deliver it to her from the outside.
Indeed, I have heard of one lot of copper in Sweden for which 40 cents
a pound was bid if the parties could ship it out across the Baltic.

I have a friend who was bid $5 a gallon for gasolene if he would land
it within Germany, but such bids are not necessarily convincing. They
may be made to fool the enemy. There are also stories of great
underground storage-tanks of petroleum, owned by the government and
concealed in the Black Forest, that have never yet been touched. It is
inconceivable that Germany should plunge into a great war without
having resources of copper and petroleum. But for all that is bought
from without she must pay gold. No financiers know better the value of
gold as the underpinning in finance than do the Germans.

Germany was very lavish with her gold at the start, and the French
believed that it was an assistance in her military strategy. At the
battle of Charleroi 50,000 German cavalry screened an unsuspected
infantry force of 300,000 men and the French had to retreat; but that
Maubeuge surrendered 40,000 men, without more fighting, gives rise in
the French mind to suspicions of German gold. The anathemas of the
French against their commander at Maubeuge make it much safer for him
to remain a prisoner in Germany. The French caught one German wearing
a French uniform but having upon his person one million francs. Of
course, they shot him as a spy, but they were more incensed by the
bribes he carried than by his uniform.

Everybody in Germany is called upon to lend a hand in maintaining the
supply of gold for the government. The patriotism of the people was
first appealed to. Then laws were passed. People are "requested" to
give up their jewelry, to make a patriotic sacrifice of it for the
Fatherland. Cards are printed in the newspapers urging the people for
the sake of the Fatherland to bring all their gold into the Reichsbank.

So fine is the search for gold that wedding rings are given from the
fingers of the women, and iron rings are substituted as badges of
patriotism.

While every other nation on earth since 1900 has been accumulating gold
in bank reserve, England alone has stood aloof and accumulated credit
instead of gold. English financiers laugh at