financial matters which we recommend to our respective
Governments. Britain and France are two of the richest countries in the
world. In fact, they are the great bankers of the world. We could pay
for our huge expenditure on the war for five years, allowing a
substantial sum for depreciation, out of the proceeds of our investments
abroad. France could carry on the war for two or three years at least
out of the proceeds of her investments abroad, and both countries would
still have something to spare to advance to their allies. This is a most
important consideration, for at the present moment the Allies are
fighting the whole of the mobilized strength of Germany, with perhaps
less than one-third of their own strength. The problem of the war to the
Allies is to bring the remaining two-thirds of their resources and
strength into the fighting line at the earliest possible moment. This is
largely, though by no means entirely, a question of finance.

Russia is in a different position from either Britain or France. She is
a prodigiously rich country in natural resources--about the richest
country in the world in natural resources. Food, raw material--she
produces practically every commodity. She has a great and growing
population, a virile and industrious people. Her resources are
overflowing and she has labor to develop them in abundance. By a stroke
of the pen Russia has since the war began enormously increased her
resources by suppressing the sale of all alcoholic liquors. [Cheers.] It
can hardly be realized that by that means alone she has increased the
productivity of her labor by something between 30 and 50 per cent., just
as if she had added millions of laborers to the labor reserves of Russia
without even increasing the expense of maintaining them, and whatever
the devastation of the country may be Russia has more than anticipated
its wastage by that great act of national heroism and sacrifice.
[Cheers.] The great difficulty with Russia is that, although she has
great natural resources, she has not yet been able to command the
capital within her own dominions to develop those resources even during
the times of peace. In time of war she has additional difficulties. She
cannot sell her commodities for several reasons. One is that a good deal
of what she depends upon for raising capital abroad will be absorbed by
the exigencies of the war in her own country. Beyond that the yield of
her minerals will not be quite as great,