ange is oversupplied. The lack is in the
goods to be exchanged. The enormous extension of German note issues does
not, and can not, diminish. In this country the expansion of credit and
money immediately after the war (manifested by the issue of Clearing
House certificates and emergency banknotes) has been cleared away by
liquidation. In Germany the "canned" assets behind the depreciated
currency cannot be liquidated until the end of the war. And their worth
at that time will depend much on the future course of the war and the
terms of peace. If German territory should be overrun and the tangible
forms of capital in factories and fixed capital be destroyed, much of
the liquidation might be indefinitely prolonged. Whatever of foreign
trade is permanently lost would also increase the difficulties.

In a great financial emergency nearly every country has, at one time or
another, been tempted to confuse the monetary with the fiscal functions
of the Treasury. To borrow by the issue of money seems to have a
seductive charm hard to resist. Lloyd George established a new precedent
for Great Britain by issuing nearly $200,000,000 of Government currency
notes, but this was done to provide notes for the public instead of coin
(L1 and 10s.) and made unnecessary any emergency issues by the Bank of
England, and a large gold fund has been accumulated behind them so that
they are convertible. In Germany it does not seem likely that the
Treasury notes will be largely used (having increased from $16,500,000
to about $200,000,000) as a means of borrowing, since the new loans are
being issued in terms of longer maturities.

J. LAURENCE LAUGHLIN.

LETTERS FROM WIVES

[By Cable to The New York Tribune.]

London, March 8.--Edward Page Gaston, an American business man long
resident in London, has just returned from Belgium, and brought with him
many sad and touching relics of the battlefields in that distressful
country, chiefly from the neighborhood of Mons. These pathetic memorials
include letters from wives, sweethearts, and friends at home and letters
written by soldiers now dead and never posted.

Turning these letters over, one comes across such an expression as this:
"I congratulate you on your promotion. It seems too good to be true.
Good-bye and God bless you, dear. God keep you in health and bring you
safely back."

Alas! the soldier who got that letter came back no way at all to his
sweetheart or his friends.

"If